By Alisha Dixon
Last week, Mayor Mike Duggan, Congressman John Conyers and other local officials celebrated the life and legacy of singer and songwriter Stevie Wonder by renaming a portion of Milwaukee Avenue to Stevie Wonder Avenue on Detroit’s west side.
“You are Detroit,” Mayor Duggan said while speaking to Wonder at the ceremony.
“You embody everything that we’re capable of and Stevie Wonder Avenue is a way of saying thank you to all you have given us, but it’s also our way of reminding our children that this street was once home to a talented young man just like them whose music changed the world.”
The corner of Milwaukee Ave. and Woodward Avenue in Detroit chosen to be named after the legend is significant because it is where Wonder grew up. Wonder was born in Saginaw, but moved to Detroit when he was just four years old.
Coincidentally, Wonder’s Milwaukee Avenue childhood home is less than a mile away from the site of Motown Records’ Hitsville USA.
“I remember my brother Calvin and I walking on the street eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and me trying to steal cookies when I was supposed to be asleep,” the singer said while sharing some of his childhood memories from living on Milwaukee Avenue.
The 25-time Grammy Award winner, known for hits like “You Are My Sunshine,” “My Cherie Amour” and “Superstition” and for selling over 100 million records said, he was proud to be honored by his hometown and is excited to witness the expansion and growth in the city.
“Obviously it’s an amazing feeling, unbelievable. I never imagined in my lifetime this would happen. I know things can’t last forever, but I’m going to freeze this moment in my mind and make it last,” Wonder said.
“I am so thankful and filled with gratitude that that the city where I grew up would give me a forever moment- a moment that is captured on Milwaukee Street and in my heart. I am overjoyed. “My love of the city is a reflection of the music I’ve written. Detroit is all in everything that I’ve done.”
Stevie Wonder’s greatness extends beyond music as he has fought tirelessly for decades for the cause of human and civil rights globally. In 2014, President Obama awarded Wonder with the highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“You advocated for peace and pushed a badly divided nation to come together and honor a man who made justice his life’s mission, Dr. Martin Luther King. You changed history, and you did it getting your start right here in Detroit,” Mayor Duggan on Wonder’s legacy of activism.
In his final remarks, Wonder sang to the eager crowd a portion of one of his famous songs.
“You are the sunshine of my life. You are the apple of my eye, Detroit. Forever you’ll stay in my heart,” he sang.
“I just wanted you to know I can still sing.”
Mr. Wonder definitely still has it.
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