30 years later: remembering the big marches - civil rights marches; includes related articles

Ebony, July, 1993

Detroit 'Walk' was a major event in a year of legendary demonstrations

THE historic March on Washington was preceded by a number of major events, including a huge and generally overlooked Detroit Walk to Freedom, which drew thousands of people and set a new standard for urban demonstrations.

Led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and organized by major Detroit leaders, including the Rev. C.L. Franklin, chairman of the aggressive Detroit Council for Human Relations, chief marshall and march organizer James Del Rio, former governor John B. Swainson and UAW President Walter Reuther, the march was aimed at obtaining better jobs, better housing and better schools for Blacks.

The march started at Grand Boulevard on Woodward Avenue and stretched for miles to downtown Cobo Hall where Dr. King addressed the crowds.

Although the date of the march, June 23, 1963, coincided with the 20th anniversary of one of the nation's worst race riots in Belle Isle Park in the Detroit River that claimed 33 lives, the March to Freedom became a model of peaceful protest in behalf of social change.

Organizer Recalls Detroit 'Walk To Freedom'

AS he cruises in his chauffeur-driven limousine through his upscale La Jolla, Calif., neighborhood--his eyes hidden by dark sunglasses, with a heavy gold chain and pendant substituting for a necktie and his Western boots propped casually against the side of the vehicle's luxurious interior--James Del Rio seems a dead ringer for a Hollywood movie mogul, certainly not for a pioneer civil rights activist. Yet, the 69-year-old retired Detroit judge, state legislator and entrepreneur was the driving spring behind one of the biggest protest marches of the '60s, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.-led Walk to Freedom in Detroit.

At the time, Del Rio was a young, prematurely wealthy real estate broker, mortgage banker and insurance company owner. As chairman of the board of trustees of New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, he had been asked by its pastor, the Rev. C. L. Franklin (singer Aretha Franklin's late father) to be chairman of planning of a March to Freedom.

"He told me," recalls Del Rio, "that since he and Dr. King had been close friends, Dr. King would come if he asked him to come. I went to Atlanta and talked with Dr. King and he agreed to come. After that, I went around to all the Black churches and to all the political contacts I had all over the state because we wanted people to come from everywhere."

Del Rio recalls that many feared that the march would be a fiasco and that violence might erupt. "As it turned out," he says, "the only arrest made during the march was that of a White drunk who got unruly. No one else got arrested."

In spite of the widespread skepticism, Del Rio says an estimated "250,000 to 500,000" people participated. "We didn't expect that kind of turnout. The press and police, in order to play down the success of the march, underreported the numbers at 125,000."

Asked 30 years later whether he considers marches stil a viable method for Blacks, Del Rio responds with an emphatic "no." "Marches were useful to express our frustration and to attempt to avert riots. But we have seen that you can't march your way to freedom. We have to learn that economics is the way to freedom and that the way to economics is through education."

At the time of the historic Detroit march, Del Rio was no stranger to EBONY. In an article entitled "Young Man In A Hurry" (April 1960), it had already traced the dynamic entrepreneur's life from the moment he was found abandoned in a trash can shortly after his birth to his rise as a real estate tycoon before he reached the age of 30. That story was followed by another entitled "Michigan's Ghettobuster" (Feb. 1963) that featured Del Rio's successful scheme to integrate Pontiac.

The successful outcome of the Detroit Freedom March had a major impact on Del Rio's life. It launched his own political career. In 1965, after helping several other candidates win elective office, Del Rio threw his own hat into the political arena. Elected to the Michigan House of Representatives, he served four consecutive two-year terms and rose to the chairmanship of the powerful Judiciary Committee. In that post, he made as many friends as enemies with the introduction of tough anti-crime bills, including Michigan's famed "John bill" that calls for the arrest of the "client" along with the arrest of the prostitute. "I got the newspapers to print his name so that in White suburbia they would know that he had been in the central city," chuckles Del Rio.

While serving in the Michigan legislature, Del Rio commuted between Lansing, the state capital, and Detroit, traveling some 1,200 miles per week for eight years, in his dual quest for college and law degrees. In 1971, after passing the Michigan Bar, he was elected a judge of Detroit's Recorder's Court. In four years on the bench, Judge Del Rio established the enviable record of being reversed only six times in 9,444 cases.

After resigning from the bench while hospitalized with serious complications from kidney stones, bachelor and three times divorced Del Rio moved to La Jolla to die. "Doctors gave me nine months to live," he says, "and I wanted to be near my only son [and only child] who lived out here at the time." But instead of dying, Del Rio fooled the doctors and recovered. Soon, he got involved in doing what he does best--making money. With a new partner he purchased five acres of choice land on top of Mount Soledat above La Jolla and built and marketed 11 luxury homes. In addition to giving business advice to professional football players for a handsome consultation fee, he donates political and business advice to San Diego's Black poliemen, firemen and churches.