Famous people's places / Detroit – Northwest Side
Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church
Closed – archive entry · 2006
Northwest Detroit Catholic church where Viola Liuzzo's funeral drew Martin Luther King Jr. and national civil rights and labor leaders in March 1965; the parish merged into Corpus Christi in 2006.
01 / The story of this place
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Immaculate Heart of Mary parish was established in 1948 to serve Catholic families on Detroit's northwest side, at 16000 Pembroke Avenue. It became a moment of national attention on March 30, 1965, when it hosted the funeral of Viola Liuzzo, the Detroit mother and civil rights volunteer murdered by Ku Klux Klan members in Alabama after the Selma to Montgomery march. Martin Luther King Jr. attended alongside NAACP leader Roy Wilkins, CORE leader James Farmer, UAW president Walter Reuther, and Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, who had provided the union's plane to bring Liuzzo's body home and who donated twenty-five thousand dollars to King's organization at the service. The parish continued for four more decades before shrinking enrollment led the Archdiocese of Detroit to merge it with St. Gerard Parish in 2006, forming Corpus Christi Parish. The building still stands today and now serves as the Corpus Christi Outreach Center.
- Parish established in 1948 at 16000 Pembroke Avenue
- Hosted Viola Liuzzo's funeral on March 30, 1965
- Martin Luther King Jr., Walter Reuther, and Jimmy Hoffa attended the funeral
- Merged into Corpus Christi Parish in 2006; the building is now the Corpus Christi Outreach Center
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 1
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Viola Liuzzo 1925–1965 · civil rights activist
Related place
Detroit church where her funeral was held on March 30, 1965, attended by Martin Luther King Jr.
Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25
An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.
03 / Events
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