Famous people's places / Detroit – East Riverfront
Solidarity House
The United Auto Workers' riverfront headquarters since 1951, where Walter Reuther led the union and once lent Martin Luther King Jr. office space to draft an early I Have a Dream speech.
01 / The story of this place
Make time for these
The United Auto Workers built Solidarity House on East Jefferson Avenue along the Detroit River, opening it in 1951 as the union's national headquarters. Walter Reuther, the UAW's president through the 1950s and 1960s, ran the union's growing operation from here and turned it into one of the most powerful labor organizations in the country. In 1963, Reuther lent Martin Luther King Jr. office space inside Solidarity House, where King worked on an early version of the speech he would deliver in full a few months later at the March on Washington, after first road-testing pieces of it at a civil rights march down Woodward Avenue. After Reuther died in 1970, Leonard Woodcock led the union from Solidarity House until 1977, followed by Douglas Fraser through 1983 and then Owen Bieber into the 1990s. The building remains the UAW's headquarters today, a working monument to Detroit's labor history on the same stretch of riverfront where Reuther once set policy.
- UAW national headquarters since 1951
- Walter Reuther led the union from here for two decades
- Martin Luther King Jr. worked on an early I Have a Dream draft here in 1963
- Later home base for UAW presidents Leonard Woodcock, Douglas Fraser, and Owen Bieber
- Still the UAW's headquarters today
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 4
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Walter Reuther 1907–1970 · president of the United Auto Workers (1946–1970)
Worked here
The UAW's riverfront headquarters, from which he led the union; he lent office space here to Martin Luther King Jr., who worked on an early version of his I Have a Dream speech in 1963.
- Leonard Woodcock 1911–2001 · UAW president (1970–1977), first US ambassador to the People's Republic of China
Worked here
UAW headquarters on East Jefferson, his base as union president.
- Douglas Fraser 1916–2008 · president of the United Auto Workers (1977–1983)
Worked here
UAW headquarters on East Jefferson, his base as union president.
- Owen Bieber 1929–2020 · president of the United Auto Workers (1983–1995)
Worked here
UAW headquarters on East Jefferson, his base as union president.
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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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Official website & visitor information ↗