The sanctuary at Greater Emmanuel Church of God in Christ was already full before the first note of the organ swelled through the air. Every pew told a story of a city, of a people, and of a woman who spent her life fighting for both.
On Wednesday, October 22, Detroit gathered for two reasons: to say goodbye to Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick and, most importantly, to honor a legacy stitched into the city’s fabric like the red and black colors her family wore in her memory; bold, purposeful, unflinching.
As her son, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, made his way to the front row, he paused…