The City of Westland’s Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration will take place on Monday, January 20th at Westland City Hall.  Doors will open at 8:00 a.m. and a shuttle bus will be provided from City Hall to the Westland Public Library where we will begin our Freedom Walk to signify unity at 9:00 a.m.  The walk will take place down Central City Parkway and end back at Westland City Hall.  The MLK Ceremony begins at 10:00 a.m. and is meant to celebrate the life and legacy of one of America’s most extraordinary man, Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Walk to Freedom was a mass march during the Civil Rights Movement on June 23, 1963 in Detroit, Michigan. It drew crowds of an estimated 125,000 or more and was known as “the largest civil rights demonstration in the nation’s history” up to that date.

Various ministers and leaders of local and national organizations including the Mayor of Detroit were in attendance and gave speeches. Among them was Martin Luther King Jr. who after the Walk to Freedom March gave an impassioned speech. It was a precursor to his famous “I Have a Dream” speech given weeks later in Washington, D.C.. The march itself was, to King and his supporters, partly a practice run of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.