Walking Tour

Detroit AAPI Self-Guided Walking Tour

Distance from starting point to ending point is slightly under one mile.

Hart Plaza was the site of Detroit’s “Ethnic Festivals.” Until the Vincent Chin campaign for justice and the founding of American Citizens for Justice in 1983, this was the main pan-Asian occurrence in Michigan. One weekend per year, the various Asian ethnic groups of the metro Detroit area came together, with booths selling Asian foods and confections with cultural performances showcasing the different ethnic heritages. On the lower level of the plaza was the upscale Henry Yee’s Chinese restaurant, a favorite of local politicians and influencers. Henry Yee was the “unofficial mayor of Chinatown” and the personal representative of Vincent Chin’s mother.
County courtrooms were also located here: ACJ representative met with Judge Kaufman here and organized an AAPI court watch when ACJ attorneys challenged the judge’s sentence of probation. Outside, near the Spirit of Detroit statue, Asian Americans and allies held numerous picket lines and protests for justice for Vincent Chin.
ACJ organized a mass rally May 9, 1983 that drew about 1,000 protestors in a cross-class, multiracial, multicultural, interfaith crowd and a long roster of diverse speakers, including Lily Chin, ACJ members, NAACP and DABO, Detroit City Council, Roundtable of Christians and Jews, Detroit Human Relations, and Filipino, Korean and Japanese American groups. ACJ members who were engineers and scientists at auto tech centers planned the demonstration and created an assembly line to make the picket signs.
The first civil rights trial of Vincent’s killers was held here, presided by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, who sentenced Ronald Ebens to 25 years in prison for violating Vincent Chin’s civil rights and killing him. Nearby are two Detroit iconic “Coney Island hot dog” joints, which were often frequented by ACJ court watch volunteers.
ACJ volunteers hand delivered press releases in those pre-fax and pre-internet days to the two news dailies and numerous other press corps who had offices there. Located further away in a northwesterly direction are long-gone building sites (not worth viewing): the Detroit Press Club, formerly at Howard and First Streets. The first ACJ press conference was held there on April 15, 1983 and assailed modern day “frontier justice” when killers of Chinese and Asians were rarely prosecuted. Also, Detroit’s first Chinatown, dating to the early 1900s, was demolished when the Lodge Freeway was built in the 1950s; it was located near the Bagley Street freeway on-ramp; businesses and residents were moved to the area of Cass Avenue and Peterboro Street. That Chinatown, too, is now gone except for a few of the old buildings and a kiosk noting the location of the former Chinatown.
ACJ held the very first Vincent Chin Remembrance and Rededication here June 19-23, 1983. This church was a welcoming house of worship for many generations of Asian Americans and other immigrant groups. In the early 1900s, regular religious services were conducted in Chinese, along with Sunday school Chinese classes. Several ACJ elders had attended this church from childhood.
Enjoy the River Walk; view the Ambassador Bridge toward the southwest and, across the river is Windsor, Ontario, Canada on the other side–the only part of Canada that is south of the USA in the lower 48 (useful trivia).

History of Asian Americans in City of Detroit Tour

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Detroit AAPI Self-Guided Walking Tour

1. Start at base of Woodward Avenue across Jefferson Avenue toward the Detroit River, at the Hart Plaza and the Isamu Noguchi fountain and sculpture.

2. Cross Jefferson Avenue to the Coleman Young Municipal Center (City-County building), where the City Council leaders Erma Henderson and Maryann Mahaffey honored Lily Chin.

3. Walk north on Woodward three blocks. At the northeast corner across Michigan Avenue is where the famous rallying point, Kennedy Square, used to be (now the Campus Martius park by Cadillac Square).

4. Protest marchers left Kennedy Square, heading across Woodward, going 3 blocks west to the Federal Courthouse at 231 West Lafayette Blvd, where demonstrators presented a petition to the US Attorney to demand a federal investigation into the hate killing of Vincent Chin.

5. Located one more block west are the buildings that housed the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News, 321 W. Lafayette.

6. Walking back eastward, turn left at Woodward to go north to the semi-circle called Grand Circus Park. At the northeast corner of Woodward and Adams St. is the Central United Methodist Church, built in 1866.

7. Head back south toward the Detroit River to return to the starting point.