Coleman A. Young (1918 - 1997)
EDITORIAL:
Who else could be 'The Mayor'?by Larry Gabriel
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12/3/97Late one evening in 1971, a friend and I were headed home on foot from a house party. As we crossed Seven Mile at John R, police cars screeched to a stop on either side of us. As a black youth of 18, I knew the routine. By the time several members of the STRESS unit had their rifles trained on me, my hands were in the air and my knees shook.
"Do you have any needles on you?" asked one cop as they patted us down.
Then another cop said, "These aren't the guys we want. They were wearing hats."
Without an apology or anything else, the cops jumped back in their cars and squealed off.
Experiences such as that are a large reason Coleman A. Young was elected mayor of Detroit in 1973. One of the earliest and most important things he did was stop the siege of the police force on the city's own citizens. Detroit will never see the likes of Mayor Young again.
Young passed away Saturday from respiratory failure after months of fighting for his life. He served Detroit as mayor for an unprecedented 20 years and still hovered as a force in the background for nearly four years of retirement.
From my perspective, Young stayed in office one term too long. He was no longer as vital and acted by rote rather than for reason. But then, who was there to challenge him? Who could articulate a better path? John Conyers Jr.? Erma Henderson? Tom Barrow, the man who couldn't even get elected to City Council this year?
Young's style was abrasive and confrontational. And that was off-putting for many. But for every suburbanite who didn't feel welcome in Young's Detroit, there was a Detroiter who didn't feel welcome in the suburbs.
Young was a man of his time and therefore takes the blame for much of what happened to Detroit during his tenure. Still, he is blamed for much that started long before he became mayor.
The seeds of the economic decline started during the 1940s as the auto companies increasingly moved production away from the Detroit area as a way of combating union power; that abandonment of the Motor City continued as automakers discovered people in other countries would work for less. White flight started in the 1950s and picked up after the 1967 violence -- seven years before Young's administration began. In fact, it was a coup for him to keep as many manufacturing jobs in Detroit as he did.
If you're going to blame Detroit's decline on Young, then his predecessors Roman Gribbs and Jerome Cavanagh must share that blame. And if you're going to congratulate Dennis Archer for turning the city around, then Young must take some of the credit for setting the stage for Archer to move so quickly, from introducing the idea of casinos to moving development to the riverfront. (Similarly, some of the less laudable aspects of the Archer administration follow the Young line, for instance the overreliance on downtown development at the expense of neighborhoods. And the Archer administration hasn't entirely shaken the Young administration's penchant for secrecy.)
The bottom line, nonetheless, is that Coleman Young stands head and shoulders above any mayor this city has produced. And no one else managed to hold on for 20 years -- a feat that will probably not be equaled. Coleman Young was Detroit, and will forever be known as The Mayor.
Larry Gabriel is the editor of the Metro Times.