‘Mr. Emancipation’ explores the life of Walter L. Perry and his progressive ideas for a festival in one of the most significant places and times in North American history. Perry usually sold newspapers at the Windsor/ Detroit tunnel, but in his spare time – for 30 plus years – he transformed his home town of Windsor, Ontario in Canada into the most exciting place to be. He staged an Emancipation Day festival which transcended divisions of race and class. Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr, Jesse Owens all headed there because, as civil rights activist Dick Gregory said, “The largest Juneteenth celebration was not in America, it was in Windsor, Canada.”
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