All eventsConcerts, festivals and markets, tonight and this weekend
Annual festivalsJazz, techno, cars and parades: Michigan’s year, festival by festival
Holidays & seasonsPumpkin season, Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, the Fourth
Sports: games & scoresLions, Red Wings, Pistons, Tigers: live scores and trophies
ItinerariesReady-made day plans, stop by stop
Places to exploreMuseums, parks, neighborhoods and icons
Metro Detroit mapWhat Metro Detroit is, and what every town is about
The Henry FordRosa Parks’ bus, Greenfield Village and the Ford Rouge Factory
RenCen: live trackerThe Renaissance Center’s past, present and future, up to the minute
Gordie Howe BridgeThe new bridge to Canada: live waits, tolls, and yes, you can walk it
ToursBy boat, by bike or on foot, with a local guide
Escape roomsOne hour, one lock and your crew
Plan a meetingVenues, hotels and what’s on in town on your dates
Detroit A–ZFrom limos to chambers of commerce: every business and service in one place
ShoppingDetroit-made brands, markets and shopping streets
Detroit with kidsZoo, science center and rainy-day ideas
Motor City cultureFactories, museums and car events
Wellness & rechargeA riverside sauna, spas, yoga and running trails
Black history · Weekend
From a surviving Underground Railroad hideout to Joe Louis's gym, Aretha's church and Rosa Parks's bus: two days in Detroit's Black history.
Detroit was the last stop before Canada for freedom seekers, and later the city of Black Bottom, the civil rights movement and Motown. Saturday takes you through downtown churches, a legendary gym and the great African American history museum, then a jazz club at night; Sunday covers the churches of Linwood Street, the Motown house and Rosa Parks's bus. A car makes it easiest, since the stops are spread out.
10:00
Detroit – Greektown
Michigan's oldest Black congregation was founded in 1836 by thirteen formerly enslaved people, and the church became a key Underground Railroad station on the way to Canada; Frederick Douglass met John Brown here in 1859. Downstairs is the Croghan Street Station, one of the few documented surviving safe houses in Detroit, which you can see on a Detroit Underground Railroad Historical Society tour.
About a 23-minute walk, or a few minutes by car north to the edge of Brush Park.
11:45
Detroit – near Brush Park
The city opened it in 1929 for the Black Bottom neighborhood, when Black Detroiters were barred from the YMCA and most recreation facilities. A teenage Joe Louis trained here, with a young Sugar Ray Robinson watching. It closed in 2006 and reopened in December 2025 as the new home of the legendary Kronk Gym, a working boxing gym, so be respectful of people training.
About 5 minutes by car to East Warren Avenue in Midtown.
13:00
Midtown
Founded by physician Charles H. Wright, the museum centers the complex history of African American life through objects, personal stories and present-day questions. Its great rotunda is a place of public remembrance: Rosa Parks lay in repose here, and thousands filed past Aretha Franklin here in 2018. Give it time; some subjects are heavy.
About 10 minutes by car east, past Lafayette Park.
15:30
Detroit – East Side
Dedicated in 1846, Elmwood is Michigan's oldest non-denominational cemetery and one of the first fully racially integrated cemeteries in the Midwest. Its paths follow the last open stretch of Bloody Run, where Pontiac's warriors ambushed British troops in 1763. Check the cemetery's site for hours and guided tours.
About 10 minutes by car farther east to Garland Street.
16:45
Detroit – East Side
Dr. Ossian Sweet, a Black physician, moved into this 1919 brick bungalow with his family in 1925, and on their second night a mob of hundreds surrounded the house. Charged with murder, the Sweets were defended by Clarence Darrow, hired by the NAACP, in trials that became a landmark for Black homeowners' rights. It's privately owned, so view it from the street, where a state marker tells the story.
About 30 minutes by car northwest to Livernois Avenue.
19:00
Livernois / Avenue of Fashion
Jazz and soul food on Livernois Avenue: Baker's traces its jazz-club history to 1934, and its own history lists Miles Davis, Billie Holiday and John Coltrane among past performers. It's open until midnight on Saturdays; check the schedule and reserve ahead.
10:00
Detroit – Dexter-Linwood
Rev. C. L. Franklin's congregation: he was pastor here from 1946 to 1979, and his daughter Aretha sang in the church as a child and, at 14 in 1956, recorded her first album live in its sanctuary, back when it stood on Hastings Street. Since 1963 the church has been in the former Oriole Theater; in the 1960s the congregation was a civil rights hub that hosted Martin Luther King Jr. The church office, open weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., can tell you about Sunday worship.
A few minutes by car south on Linwood Street.
12:00
Detroit – Linwood
In 1967 Rev. Albert Cleage Jr. unveiled a mural of a Black Madonna and child here, and the church became a hub of Black Power organizing in Detroit; the congregation grew into the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church. The building joined the National Register in 2021. The way to see the mural is at a service, so call ahead.
About 5 minutes by car to West Grand Boulevard.
13:30
New Center
The little house that sent Black American music around the world: Berry Gordy set up Motown's first headquarters and Studio A here in 1959. Guided Hitsville tours have been paused since January 20, 2026, during construction, but standing out front is still a must; check the museum's site for exhibitions.
About 20 minutes by car to Dearborn.
15:00
Dearborn
The last stop is a bus: on this one, on December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. The museum won it at an online auction in 2001; today it sits in the With Liberty & Justice for All exhibit, and you can step aboard. The museum closes at 5 p.m., so head straight there.
14 stops
Detroit in 48 hours: the classics and the brand-new citySaturday market, the riverfront, Art Deco lobbies and the newest Detroit: a two-day plan you can mostly do on foot.
10 stops
Where's Detroit's art? A whole weekend's worthRivera's murals, a bead-covered sculpture garden, houses turned into art and big street murals: a weekend from museum halls to alleys.
9 stops
The Dad weekend: cars, barbecue, bowling and a little luckThe Model T's birthplace, a ballpark, whiskey, barbecue, bowling and The Henry Ford: two days Dad will be talking about for years.We built these plans from our own checked place pages. Hours and prices change, so check each place’s page before you go.
