In 1963, George Romney Gave The Keynote Address At The Conference That Sparked The Martin Luther King Freedom Marches In Detroit. The establishment of these human relations groups came in the wake of several major events (besides the embarrassing racist practices of such suburbs as Dearborn), which took place in 1963 and helped galvanize interracial support and cooperation for integrated housing. The first event was the Metropolitan Conference on Open Occupancy held in Detroit in January 1963. The second event was the Martin Luther King Freedom March in June of the same year, the spinoffs of which were several Detroit NAACP-sponsored interracial marches into Detroit suburbs to dramatize the need for black housing. Governor George Romney gave the keynote speech at this conference, in which he pledged to use the power of the state to achieve housing equality in Michigan. (Joe T. Darden, Detroit, Race And Uneven Development, 1987, p. 132)
· In Their 1967 Book, Stephen Hess And David Broder Wrote That George Romney Marched With Martin Luther King Through The Exclusive Grosse Point Suburb Of Detroit. He has marched with Martin Luther King through the exclusive Grosse Pointe suburb of Detroit and he is on record in support of full-coverage Federal open-housing legislation. (Stephen Hess And David Broder, The Republican Establishment: The Present And Future Of The G.O.P., 1967, p. 107)