- [Narrator] Coming up on "One Detroit," we'll talk about the role of immigrants and global talent in growing Michigan's population.

Plus the popular "Too Hot to Handel" concert is back in Detroit after a four-year hiatus.

We'll have a preview.

Also ahead, we'll have a list of events for you and your family to enjoy this weekend in Metro Detroit.

And as the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday approaches, we'll look back at last year's 60th anniversary of two civil rights marches led by Dr. King.

It's all coming up next on "One Detroit."

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(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Just ahead on "One Detroit," it's the 20th anniversary of a jazz gospel favorite.

We'll take you behind the scenes of this weekend's performance of "Too Hot to Handel".

Plus, Dave Wagner of 90.9 WRCJ is here with some additional ideas on activities you can take in over the weekend and beyond.

And in honor of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday on Monday, we'll revisit our coverage of the 60th anniversary of two major civil rights marches.

But first up, a conversation with the managing director of the organization, Global Detroit, about the importance of immigrants in growing Michigan's population.

Dr. Alaina Jackson spoke with American Black Journal host and "One Detroit" contributor, Stephen Henderson, about Global Detroit's strategy of including immigrants in the region's community and economic development plans.

- I think my perspective- (gentle upbeat music) (titles whooshing) - Let's start with getting our viewers caught up on what Global Detroit is.

This has been around now for more than a decade.

What does Global Detroit do?

- So, Global Detroit is a regional community and economic development organization with a focus on immigrants and global talent.

We develop and implement inclusive strategies to drive the growth revitalization and broadly shared prosperity in Detroit and throughout Southeast Michigan.

- And a lot of that work is focused on immigration and immigrants.

The contributions that Global Detroit believes people who come to this country can make and should be able to make in this country and in this city.

And that's a key dynamic and factor right here in Southeast Michigan for lots of reasons.

- Oh, absolutely.

At Global Detroit, we believe that by intentionally including immigrants in our community and economic development strategies, we can spark growth revitalization and sustain prosperity throughout Michigan.

And the reality bears that to be true given the economic contributions immigrants make, given the fact that all of our net population growth over the last 30 years has been due to immigration.

And so we firmly believe that an immigrant-inclusive strategy, as it relates to both community and economic development, can drive prosperity for all of us.

- Immigrant-inclusive is the phrase that you used.

That's not the default, I think, position that a lot of folks have, and certainly a lot of institutions have.

But talk about what you mean when you say that.

- So unfortunately, you're right.

That isn't always the default, but our history bears this to be true.

You know, Henry Ford, long, long ago decided that he would pay anybody and everybody to work on the line and look what he created from that.

He hired, you know, Chaldean folk, he hired African American folk, he hired Asian folk, you know, Irish folk.

And somehow, he brought them all together, and he knew that if you paid them a living wage that they could create something, and they wouldn't go out of a job because he would pay them enough to buy the cars that they were making, and he wouldn't go out of a job.

And so this is a long part of our history in Michigan, but somehow, we have gotten away from it.

And so immigrant inclusion looks like language access.

Immigrant inclusion looks like driver's licenses for everybody so that everybody can get to work.

Immigrant inclusion looks like strategies to help our international students stay here.

They're attending our public universities, we're helping to educate them and grow their acumen in their respective fields.

And so why wouldn't we create a pipeline for them to stay here and contribute, continue to contribute to the statewide economy?

- Yeah, yeah.

So, I do wanna talk about the governor's task force on growing Michigan's population and growing talent here.

You were a member of that task force.

Talk about the work that you were doing, and the kind of perspective, I guess, you brought to that work.

- Sure.

So I was on the jobs talent and people work group, and we were charged with proposing economic development strategies that create safe, vibrant communities and lead to opportunities and upward economic mobility for all Michiganders.

And so we talked about issues that would ensure domestic migration to Michigan, such as retaining young talent, but also attracting new talent.

My perspective was one that once again said, "Hey, we don't have to have a zero sum game strategy to this.

There's a way for us to promote immigration as an economic development and population growth strategy.

and do so in a way that leads to shared prosperity for everybody."

And so I tried to bring recommendations that looked at how we could use immigration to reinforce our talent pipeline.

I brought recommendations around further investing in some of the programs that we already have that we know to be working at Global Detroit, such as our Global Entrepreneur in Residence Program, that brings founders from other countries to start their businesses here, connects them with universities, and they start businesses here that create jobs here, for example, which is what we want.

- [Narrator] This Saturday marks the 20th production of "Too Hot to Handel" at the Detroit Opera.

The performance by Detroit's Rackham Choir and a group of Detroit jazz greats combines classical jazz, R&B, and gospel music for an energetic rendition of composer George Frideric Handel's "Messiah."

The concert is back after a four-year absence.

"One Detroit" contributor, Cecelia Sharpe, of 90.9 WRCJ attended a rehearsal and spoke with some of the artists about the concert's history and its innovative take on a classic masterpiece.

(gentle music) ♪ Everybody shall be exalted ♪ ♪ Everybody shall be exalted ♪ - I am here with Suzanne Mallare Acton, conductor of "Too Hot to Handel", and we are celebrating 20 years of "Too Hot to Handel" in Detroit.

And you've been, you were with the Rackham Choir, Detroit's oldest choir, give us a little bit of history about the Rackham Choir.

- The Rackham Choir was an extension of University of Michigan years ago, and they got their name from rehearsing in the Rackham Building.

- [Cecelia] How did we get "Too Hot to Handel" here in Detroit?

- Well, it's interesting because I had done Messiahs many years, and then I heard the title, I didn't know the music, I heard the title "Too Hot to Handel."

And then at one of the Messiahs that we did with Rackham, I needed a tenor, and I hired Rodrick Dixon.

- In 2000, we went to dinner, we were preparing Frideric Handel's Messiah, and she was talking about a show.

And as she talked about it, I began to realize she was talking about "Too Hot to Handel" because I had just performed it.

And so, she liked the idea of the show.

She looked at the sheet music, and we had our first performance.

And David DiChiera from Detroit Opera, Michigan Opera Theater at the time, was there, and he loved the idea of the show.

He loved the response to the show, and decided that he wanted to bring it to the Detroit Opera House in December of 2002.

♪ Arise, shine ♪ ♪ For thy light is come ♪ - So, what's the story of "Too Hot to Handel"" - Well, too "Hot to Handel" is based on the Messiah, which is an oratorio, and it's about, it's from Jesus' birth until his death and resurrection.

So Marin Alsop commissioned Gary Anderson and Bob Christenson, who are two arrangers that did Broadway and shows, to take, each one would take a number and arrange it.

So when we start off, it looks like you're going to a regular Messiah concert, where the strings are playing, but after 12 bars, then we go into a swing, and that's when the saxes and everyone... And now you know you're not in your grandfather's Messiah.

Each number has, it features a different style.

And what is wonderful about this piece is that it really showcases the talent in Detroit, the gospel, the jazz, the R&B's.

♪ Ah ♪ ♪ Everybody, everybody, Lord ♪ - Alvin, thank you so much for making time to speak with me about the 20th anniversary of "Too Hot to Handel."

So, what did you think when you really got into the music?

- I was truly just trying to take it all in.

There's a lot going on.

If you're on stage or even if you're in the audience, you'll notice there's a lot going on on stage.

- What do you love and enjoy about the Rackham Choir who is singing behind you?

- I adore the Rackham Choir.

I think they are such a fun group of people.

So often during the performance, they catch my eye, because they don't just stand there, they move, you know, they sway, they gesticulate with their hands.

I mean, they really are trying to communicate with the audience.

And they make that connection because they believe in what they're doing.

So they bring such a tremendous energy to the piece.

- We're going to have the performance around MLK Day to celebrate MLK's mission.

How does "Too Hot to Handel" uplift the mission of Dr. King?

- The teachings of Dr. King are unity and bringing all people together of, you know, different faiths and different cultures, and "Let's all unite together."

And that's what we're trying to do with "Too Hot to Handel."

- And this show is gonna do its part, really inspire people to have hope, believe in inspiration, have courage and passion to maintain all the dignity and integrity about what it means to be a human being of value.

That's King.

That's Martin Luther King Jr.!

- And it's always a wonderful thing to see so many people from different walks of life come together and just enjoy something.

If we can spend two hours together in one space these days and just kind of cast off all the cares and the different, the things that supposedly separate us as a community and just enjoy ourselves.

Just have a good time.

Clap, dance, sway, smile, you know, laugh.

That's a good thing.

I think King would be happy with that.

- Is there any message that you want to leave the audience with?

- When you come, don't feel that you have to sit still.

You can move, you can clap.

You can sing with us if you want.

It's a community.

And the energy that we have on stage, we wanna feel it from the audience and vice versa.

So don't be shy.

(choir vocalizing) - [Narrator] There's just one performance of "Too Hot to Handel" at the Detroit Opera House.

Just one of the entertaining and fun events taking place in Metro Detroit this weekend.

Here's Dave Wagner of 90.9 WRCJ with today's "One Detroit" weekend.

- Hi everyone, I'm Dave Wagner with 90.9 WRCJ here to take you through some events happening this weekend.

Well, let's start with the Detroit Symphony orchestra's, Bach & Beyond concerts.

Tomorrow's performance is at the Meyer Theater in Monroe, and Sunday's performances at the Seligman Center in Beverly Hills.

And tomorrow at the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts is the show, "Ms. Pat Ya Girl Done Made It."

And the night features comedian, author, radio host, podcaster, and actress Patricia Williams.

Or you can go to the Detroit Institute of Arts where Little Bang Theory will use their mini orchestra to perform a new score for the great silent film, "The Wind."

Then if you head on over to the west side of the state, you can take part in the largest winter festival in the United States.

It's the World of Winter in Downtown Grand Rapids with over 100 free events through March 10th.

On January 13th, "Too Hot to Handel" is coming to the Detroit Opera House stage.

This stunning jazz gospel rendition of Handel's Classic "Messiah" is returning to the stage for the first time since 2019.

Of course, there's so much more going on.

So here are a few other events happening around our area.

Have a wonderful weekend.

(gentle pulsating music) - [Narrator] And finally today, the nation will commemorate the life and legacy of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday, January 15th.

The federal holiday is seen as a time to promote equal rights and engage in community service.

Dr. King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech was delivered at two major civil rights protests in 1963, the march on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the Detroit Walk to Freedom.

Last year, similar marches were held in honor of the 60th anniversary when Detroit's Bill Kubota examined how these two events changed America.

(gentle pulsating music) - [Narrator] The 1963 march led by Dr. Martin Luther King, and that "I have a Dream" speech in Detroit commemorated two months ago along Woodward Avenue, hundreds taking part.

- I hope that as you step out into the street this morning, you are making a commitment, a commitment to organized our community.

- [Man] Lift it up.

Lift it up.

- This is a generational moment, and it's personal for me.

My father marched 60 years ago as a 6-year-old in this march.

- Organized labor in the civil rights movement are inextricably intertwined.

And we stand together, and it is a great prestigious honor to be a part of this.

- We see people banning books.

People wanna ban the book that talks about Dr. King.

This march would not be acceptable in Florida under the current governor, under the current legislature.

- You can never stop marching.

You know, it's critically important, though, that we have fixed policy to protest.

Protest without policy is pure performance.

- [Protestors] Freedom!

- When do we want it?

- Now!

- [Narrator] The fight now, the fight back then.

- 1963!

- [Narrator] Then it was the Walk to Freedom, Detroiters and Dr. King; historic, some say the beginning of a change that was going to come.

- Why is it a little known fact that Dr. King rehearsed the "I have a Dream" speech here in the city of Detroit first- - I know.

- before he took it to DC?

- Right, well, you know how it is, man, you know, you're gettin' your sing on at one place before you go sing.

- You working it out?

- Yeah, that's right.

You working out the kinks and stuff.

And this ain't no small place, Detroit.

If you can do it in Detroit, then you can withstand all kinds of critique, 'cause people here are rigorous about performance, about intelligence, about oratory and the like.

- [Reporter] Charity, you were intentional with bringing your daughter here.

Why?

- Absolutely.

Well, she has to see this in action.

And she also gets to see mom at work in a number of ways.

She also needs to see mom marching down, and she needs to get the opportunity so that 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, she'll be able to say she participated in the march as one of the first steps toward her own fight for freedom for all of us.

- This is commemorating the Detroit downtown walk from Woodward to Cobo Hall in 1963.

I was six years old when I was in the first March in '63.

- [Reporter] So you were in the original march in 1963.

- Yeah, my dad brought me.

- [Narrator] Memory 60 years on for Gregory Gunn and for Dorothy Dewberry Aldridge.

- It was a beautiful, beautiful day, and no one expected these many people to show up.

- [Narrator] An estimated 125,000.

Aldridge was 20 years old in 1963.

She's talking with one Detroit contributor, Bryce Huffman.

- You asked if there were a lot of white people there.

It was well integrated.

And then, you know, at the time, the mayor of Detroit, Mayor Cavanagh, was a white person.

So there was no conflict between blacks and whites as such, no.

- [Narrator] "One Detroit" spoke to the late Reverend Dr. Joann Watson just before this year's Detroit walk.

- It meant a lot because the injustice that was happening around the country was not just in the south.

It also included the north.

There were housing issues, employment issues, issues just related to quality of your life.

- In 1963, of course, there was the question about police harassment, police brutality of the young people in Detroit.

Now, one other thing I want to add that Medgar Evers had just been killed in Jackson, Mississippi.

- [Narrator] Medgar Evers, an NAACP official assassinated by a white supremacist less than two weeks before.

- And it was a motivating, a force that caused people to come out to the march that may not have had had Evers not been killed only days before.

- That March was organized by the Detroit Council for Human Rights, which was led by Reverend C.L.

Franklin.

And of course, if you don't know C.L., you probably know his daughter, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin; Reverend Albert Cleage, who will become the founder of the Shrine of Black Madonna and change his name to Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman; Benjamin McFall, the owner of McFall Brothers Funeral Homes, and James del Rio, who would go on to become a judge.

- Reverend Cleage and Reverend Franklin decided to start the Detroit Council for Human Rights with the idea that there really hadn't been enough improvement for African Americans since the 1943 race riot.

And the march of the Walk to Freedom was the first major event that the organization organized.

- [Narrator] The local NAACP not in on the planning, seemed to them these activists were pushing too hard, too fast.

- Some thought that Reverend Cleage was clearly more radical than the Detroit NAACP.

And at times, so was Reverend Franklin.

- [Narrator] The NAACP did bring protest signs, but the United Auto Workers Union was a real driver of the march.

- [Ken] There's no doubt that the Walk of Freedom could not have happened without the UAW under the leadership of Walter Reuther.

- These are some really cool objects from the March.

- [Narrator] UAW archivist Gavin Strassel sits on a wealth of research material at the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University.

- The records really reflect that as figures like Martin Luther King start to make inroads in American society, you can see that UAW takes notice and becomes a major financial contributor and supporter of the civil rights movement.

- [Narrator] Dr. King spoke before the union's membership two years before the march.

The UAWs Lillian Hatcher was a Walk to Freedom organizer.

- I think having the UAW involved in the planning probably went a long way in letting Martin Luther King know that this is a legitimate event and that this is something that he wants to take part in.

- So Luther and King had a great bond.

In fact, there was some thought that King might have written some of the "I have a Dream" speech at Solidarity House, UAWs headquarters in Detroit.

- [Narrator] So with the UAW and Reverend C.L.

Franklin, there was Dr. King's other Detroit connection.

- Berry Gordy Jr., the founder of Motown Records, had met King, we know several years before 1963, probably the late 1950s.

- And what came from that was Berry Gordy actually covering payroll for Dr. King to pay his staff.

And my understanding is that that happened more than once.

And so in so many ways, not only, you know, was Motown organically helping the civil rights movement and being a catalyst for bringing people together, but also in a very intentional way, they were supporting the efforts of Dr. King.

- [Narrator] The Detroit speech at Cobo Hall preserved on record by Motown.

- Segregation is wrong because it is nothing but a new form of slavery covered up with certain niceties of complexity.

(crowd cheering) - [Narrator] Dr. King would finish his speech in Detroit with the words perhaps he's most remembered, "I have a dream, "free at last," words he'd take to Washington two months later.

- [Narrator] They came from Los Angeles and San Francisco.

They came from Cleveland, from Chicago, - [Narrator] And they came from Detroit.

(people clapping) ♪ Yeah!

♪ ♪ Keep your eyes on the prize ♪ ♪ Hold on, hold on ♪ August 1963, the march on Washington.

Detroiter Edith Lee-Payne was there with her mother.

- She decided that we would go to Washington.

(protestors clamoring) She would always stress to me how important it was for me to be the best that I could always be, and I could achieve and be whatever I wanted to be.

It helped me be more of an American, which is what I am.

The fact that I am a black American is secondary.

That doesn't define me.

And our colors should never define us.

Dr. King didn't want our colors to define us.

He wanted our character to define us and who we were as a person.

(crowd cheering and clapping) - And in Birmingham, Alabama, and all over the South and all over the nation, we are simply saying that we will no longer sell our birthright of freedom for the mess of segregated parties.

(crowd cheering) - Historians have written and said often that had there not been those two marches, we may not have achieved the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act without those marches, which take place just before in the passing of that landmark, two pieces of legislation.

(gentle pulsating music) - [Announcer] From Delta Faucets to Behr Paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support for this program is provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

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Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan-focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Visit DTEfoundation.com to learn more.

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(gentle upbeat music) (gentle bright music)