Mayor Mike Duggan has declared August 31 as Detroit Memorial Day to honor city residents who lost their lives to COVID-19. The City also will honor those who continue to fight in hospitals, medical centers, food banks, homeless shelters and neighborhood groups across the city.
Because the global pandemic has limited our ability to gather for funerals, the City is holding the Citywide Memorial at the end of August to Honor COVID-19 Victims and Commemorate Detroit’s Resiliency.
The City plans to install large photo boards representing Detroit residents we lost along a route on Belle Isle. Families and friends will be able to say goodbye, and the photos will be given to families when the memorial is over.
For all of this to happen, the Detroit Memorial 2020 Committee, led by Director of Arts and Culture Rochelle Riley, needs families to send photographs of their loved ones BY JULY 31 in one of the following three ways:
- Email: detroitmemorial2020@gmail.com
- US Postal Service: Detroit Memorial 2020, P.O. Box 21761, Detroit, MI 48221, Cc: Rochelle Riley
- Online: Submission link
District Commemorations
The Memorial is a two-day celebration of life that will begin with intimate, twilight ceremonies at 5 p.m. Sunday, August 30 in each of Detroit’s seven City Council Districts, co-planned by City Council Members and co-sponsored by the Office of Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship.
Then on Monday, August 31, Detroit Memorial Day, The Memorial Drive on Belle Isle will begin.
At 7 a.m., mourners will report to the staging area on Jefferson Avenue by assigned drive times.
At 8:45 a.m., residents across southeast Michigan, from every neighborhood, every church, every business, every street, will be asked to ring bells for 15 minutes to honor the more than 1,000 souls we have lost to the pandemic.
At 9 a.m., the drive will begin around the island to offer families and friends where they will see huge posted photographs of their loved ones and can offer a final good-bye to those we have lost.
No cars will be allowed to stop or park. Instead, this year’s Dream Cruise has been replaced by this Spirit Cruise, a moving celebration of love. At 4 p.m., the island will close, and all residents across the city will be encouraged to go home and watch spectacular Parade Company Fireworks on television.
The City Office of Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship will continue to collect the photos of Detroiters who have succumbed to the coronavirus after July 31, so that we may also honor them in the future.
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