Coleman Young

The National Negro Labor Council faced accusations from the mainstream labor movement that it was a communist front.

One of the organization's leaders, Coleman Young, was brought before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Young had worked for Ford prior to World War II, but lost his job due to his union activity.

He fought in World War II as one of the Tuskegee Airmen.

Their president was Bill Hood of the UAW Local 600, the Ford River Rouge plant for those keeping track.

Their executive secretary was Coleman Young, who'd go on to be mayor of Detroit.

Their mission? Break job discrimination in industry and drive racism out of the unions themselves.

Hood opened the day with, Brothers and sisters, this is a historic day.

It was...

You know, they had the race riots in 67, then they elected Coleman Young in 73, who was a Communist Party member as also a Democrat.

He was the mayor for several years, but he had Marion Mahaffey of DSA on his city council.

He had Irma Henderson of the Communist Party on.

And that's the way it was.

England met with Coleman Young when James Blanchard ran from him.

You know, so...

Yes.

The move comes two years after Johnson ended the city's contract with ShotSpotter.

And Detroit, Michigan is expected to get a replica of the Coleman Young statue planned for the U.S. Capitol.

Young made history as Detroit's first black mayor.

Organizers say they've raised enough money for both sculptures but are still fundraising for additional expenses.

the black candidate in Detroit.

But this started to happen after the passing away of Mayor Coleman Young.

You had Dennis Archer who comes in after him.

This man comes in with, he knows what to do and he has experience.

He's the director of the Pan-African Studies.

We're talking about the political makeup of the city of Detroit right now.

And Dennis, Is it a generational issue? Because I remember you had Coleman Young, you had Charles Diggs, you had Carolyn Kilpatrick, Kwame's mother.

You had folks in Detroit who were solidly black.

Uh, and he made an interesting point.

Norris Howard at the press conference saying that like he echoed Coleman young and he used Coleman young's words talking about how Detroit is a city for everyone from the riverfront to eight mile and that nobody should feel like they're not included, especially when you've got this, this cornerstone of the riverfront.

That's basically no longer like a, a, uh, a corporate identity

yeah I think it's going to be really interesting and I think that's sort of I would say um the blind spot that I feel a lot of the the naysayers have have had taking my personal feelings out of any of this whole conversation at the end of the day it is sad as a corporate headquarters for the better part of 20 some odd years right And even before that, it was a series of corporate offices.