Travel Tips

Did you know? ... famous people who were born in metro Detroit or lived in metro Detroit during the height of their popularity.

* Aaliyah, 23-year-old singer and actor who sadly died in a plane crash in 2004
* Tim Allen, comedian
* Juan Atkins, one of the three founders of techno music
* Anita Baker, Grammy-winning R&B singer
* Dr. Ralph Bunche, first African-American nobel prize winner
* Donald Byrd, jazz trumpter
* Dr. Ben Carson, famous neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital
* Jeff Daniels, actor
* Eminem, rap artist
* Aretha Franklin, singer known as "The Queen of Soul"
* Berry Gordy, founder of Motown Records
* Thomas Hearns, welterweight boxing champion
* Kid Rock, rap artist
* Elmore Leonard, author
* Joe Louis, heavyweight champion during WWII
* Derrick May, one of the three founders of techno music
* MC5, rock and roll band
* Elijah McCoy, famous inventor with more than 75 patents, penned the nickname "The Real McKoy"
* W. Fard Muhammad, founded The Nation of Islam in Detroit
* Ted Nuggent, rock singer
* Joyce Carol Oates, award-winning author
* J. O'Barr, author of the "The Crow" comics (Later the film in which leading man Branden Lee was killed during filming)
* Rosa Parks, the mother of the Civil Rights Movement
* Iggy Pop, rock singer
* Gilda Radner, comedian
* Smokey Robinson, Motown singer and composer
* Diane Ross and The Supremes, Motown's top female recording group
* Kevin Saunderson, one of the three founders of techno music
* Bob Seiger, singer
* Helen St. Thomas, journalist
* Dr. Ossian Sweet, an African-American physician who won a famous court case defending his home in 1925 against a mob of whites who protested integration in the neighborhood
* Lilly Tomlin, actor
* Blair Underwood, actor
* The White Stripes, rock band
* Jackie Wilson, R&B Singer
* Stevie Wonder, singer and songwriter
* Coleman Young, first African-American mayor of any major city in the USA, elected in 1974