DETROIT – Tuesday night marks 57 years since Martin Luther King Jr. marched the streets of Detroit and spoke about dreams of equality that we are still struggling to achieve.
Local 4′s Paula Tutman shared a story of a couple who was there that day and has continued to risk their lives to pave the way for civil rights and social justice.
When King debuted his original “I Have A Dream” speech in Detroit in 1963, somewhere in the crowd was a 22-year-old warrior for civil rights named Dorothy Dewberry Aldridge.
“It was a very exciting day to be a part of the march,” Dorothy Dewberry Aldridge said.
Dorothy Dewberry Aldridge and her husband Dan Aldridge have spent more than six decades fighting for civil rights, equality and social justice.
They have put in the work side-by-side with Rosa Parks and Julian Bond in the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee.
They fought to expose police abuse in 1967 when three Black teenagers were shot to death at the Algiers Motel. Dan Aldridge wrote a chapter in the Pulitzer Prize winning book about the incident.
Now, the fight for civil rights seems different. Technology is at the fingertips of everyday people and appears to be the most powerful weapon of all.
The couple has hope for tangible, lasting justice for all. But they believe that the window is small, the mountain is high and the fight will get harder. They said the time is now to share their passion with a new generation of freedom fighters.
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