Dedication Of Coleman A. Young Portrait Long Overdue

Op-Ed by Ken Coleman/Tell Us Detroit

DETROIT - Later this week a ceremony will be held to dedicate a portrait of Coleman A. Young, the city’s longest serving mayor.

I applaud the effort.

The seven-foot tall portrait was created by noted sculptor and painter Artis Lane. The piece had been displayed in Cobo Center’s main lobby between 1989 and March 2013.
During the early and dark days of city’s emergency manager era, the Detroit Wayne County Joint Building Authority and the Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority, which manages Cobo Center, swapped renderings of Young and one of his predecessors, Albert B. Cobo. A bust of Cobo, which had been displayed city hall for years, moved to the convention center that bears his name. Meanwhile, the portrait of Young was moved to city hall, the structure that was renamed in his honor almost 20 years ago.

Now, I’m no fan of Cobo.

Before he could have a cup of coffee, the city’s 62nd mayor within days of his swearing in 1950, nixed nine of 12 public housing starts that were slated to remedy the city’s serious housing shortage that disproportionally effected blacks. On January 3 of that year Cobo stated:

“It will not be the purpose of the administration to scatter public housing projects throughout the City, just because funds may be forthcoming from the federal government. I will not approve federal housing projects in the outlying single home areas.

Early in this administration recommendation will be made to this body, which are designed to meet the conditions imposed by the so-called slum areas. I feel that we must acquire the land in these backward
sections that we must remove the buildings there from, and sell the property back to private individuals for development.”

The former businessman and long-time city treasurer had campaigned in 1949 on a pledge to back white homeowners groups who rallied, railed and raged against blacks moving into their lily-white communities. Cobo, himself, resided at 16873 Huntington Street just south of McNichols Road in virtually all-white Rosedale Park. Once in office, he carried out the destruction of the largely black and poor section called Black Bottom and led the way to replace it with the middle-class community called Lafayette Park without a serious plan to find homes for the displaced.

Cobo’s bust, nonetheless, is a good fit for the convention center. It was he, after all, who led to the way to have the convention center built, although Young did lead a major renovation of the structure during the late 1980s.

Young is the longest serving Detroit mayor. City hall bears his name. I’m more concern with how Young’s January 2, 1974 inaugural speech has been misinterpreted. During his address, the city’s first black mayor put crooks and criminals of all flavors on notice:

"I recognize the economic problem as a basic one, but there is also a problem of crime, which is not unrelated to poverty and unemployment, and so I say that we must attack both of these problems vigorously at the same time.

The Police Department alone cannot rid this city of crime. The police must have the respect and cooperation of our citizens. But they must earn that respect by extending to our citizens cooperation and respect. We must build a people-oriented Police Department, and then you and they can help us to drive the criminals from the streets.

I issue a forward warning now to all dope pushers, to all rip-off artists, to all muggers: It's time to leave Detroit; hit Eight Mile Road. And I don't give a damn if they are black or white, of if they wear Superfly suits or blue uniforms with silver badges:
Hit the road.

With your help, we shall move forward to a new and greater Detroit. We must first believe in ourselves. We must first do for ourselves. Yes, we will demand our share of revenue from Washington and from Lansing, but the job begins here and now with us.

Ladies and gentlemen, the time for rhetoric is past - the time for working is here, the time for moving ahead is upon us. Let's move forward together."

It’s been more than 40 years since Young made the declaration. And it lives as the most misinterpreted political oratory of our city’s history. Some of the misinterpretation is simply error; some of it is intentional. In fact, some suburban, out-county and out-state politicos like Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson have used the phrase “hit Eight Mile Road” as campaign material to foster us vs. them politics.

Fact is, Young consciously created an executive cabinet, and by extension a department head structure, that looked like the 50-50 racially composed city that he led. He grew up a community known as Black Bottom during the 1920s and ‘30s. Although the aging neighborhood just east of downtown and just north of the Detroit River was becoming more African American by the year, it was also home to European immigrants during Young’s childhood. He spoke of smelling sour rye bread from the Jewish delicatessen located near his home on St. Aubin near Antietam streets.

Simply put, Coleman Young’s portrait, just as with his bust also created by Artis Lane, is best represented in city hall. It’s where he made the biggest impact: Creating a local government reflected the residents that it served.

A dedication ceremony will be held on November 19, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., in the Erma L. Henderson Auditorium of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. Call 313-929-1280 for details or to R.S.VP.

Ken Coleman is a Detroit-based author and historian. He can be reached at www.onthisdaydetroit.com