[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 2 (Wednesday, January 28, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E55-E56]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   TRIBUTE TO COLEMAN ALEXANDER YOUNG

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, January 28, 1998

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the life of 
a man who was a civil rights legend, a political genius and an 
extraordinary human being. Coleman Alexander Young, Detroit's first 
African American mayor, died November 29, 1997, in the city he loved. 
He was 79 years old.
  Mr. Young, who served a record five consecutive terms before leaving 
office in 1994, blazed a trail of social and political equality by 
acting on his conviction that all people are entitled to a decent life. 
Born in the segregated South when white-robed Klansmen inflicted a 
reign of terror on African Americans, Young had an uncompromising 
commitment to justice, equality of opportunity, economic empowerment 
and dignity for all people.
  That commitment formed the foundation of his activism in the labor 
movement, the U.S. Army, the national political scene and the mayor's 
office. Mr. Young was, as former Michigan Governor William Milliken 
said at his funeral service, ``a man of glorious gifts.''
  He was dazzingly brilliant, disarmingly witty and outrageously 
outspoken. He was quick to anger and even quicker to forgive. He was 
not afraid to speak the truth, no matter whom it upset, and he was 
utterly fearless in his defense of basic human rights for all people--
urban dwellers, common laborers, political activists, the disenchanted 
and those ignored or scorned by society.
  Coleman Young was born May 24, 1918, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the 
oldest of William and Ida Young's five children. In 1923, the Young 
family moved to Detroit where they settled in Black Bottom, a racially 
and ethnically diverse eastside Detroit neighborhood just two miles 
from the office he would later occupy as mayor.
  The pernicious effects of systemic racism would follow him through 
his life. But instead of weakening his resolve, these challenges 
strengthened his spirit. As a student, Young excelled in his classes 
and earned all A's, but was denied a scholarship to three parochial 
high schools when school officials learned he was black. After 
graduating second in his high school class, he was denied scholarships 
to the University of Michigan and what is now known as Wayne State 
University because of his race.
  Years later he said those early brushes with racial discrimination 
were catalysts that fueled his desire to make fundamental social 
changes. The following excerpts from the memorial booklet prepared for 
Mr. Young's funeral sum up the early years when he paid a heavy price 
for being a labor activist in Detroit and a civil rights activist in 
the segregated Army Air Corps.
  ``His activism was evident in 1937 when he joined the ranks of 
automotive workers. Young worked as an electrician's apprentice and 
soon became a labor organizer of the Congress of Industrial 
Organizations (CIO). He was fired because of his union activities. 
Taking a job at the U.S. Post Office, Young again angered supervisors 
by recruiting employees to band together in a labor union. Postal 
managers used Young's involvement in a protest against racial 
segregation at Sojourner Truth, as eastside public housing project, as 
a reason to fire him.
  During World War II, Young joined the U.S. Army at the age of 24. He 
was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Infantry and later 
transferred to the Air Corps. There he became the nation's first black 
bombardier. He and other blacks in the Army Air Corps became known as 
the Tuskegee Airmen. However, racial discrimination prevented them from 
fighting in the War. They fought the Army instead.
  Young organized a group of 100 other black officers and staged a sit-
in at the ``whites only'' officers Club at Freeman Field, Indiana. They 
were jailed after they refused to sign documents agreeing to stay out 
of the club. Ironically the black officers were kept under guard while 
German POWs moved freely on the base. At least one high-ranking army 
officer wanted to court-material and shoot the black officers. The 
protest did end segregation at the club.
  Mayor Young continued his work as a union organizer after the war. 
Elected director of organization of the Wayne County AFL-CIO in 1948, 
he was the organization's first black paid staff member. In response to 
the blatant racism in the labor union hierarchy, he and other activists 
founded the National Negro Labor Council, whose goal was to win decent 
wages for blacks and whites. Entrenched union leaders were stunned and 
upset by the rapid growth of this group that dared to challenge the 
union establishment. NNLC membership included everyone from black 
factory workers in Detroit to white textile workers in the South to 
actors and activists on the east coast. Young and the NNLC also drew 
the wrath of the House Un-American Activities Committee which was 
investigating communism. He was summoned before the committee in 1952. 
Young's defiant testimony and his fearless challenge of the committee's 
role in spying on and terrorizing ordinary citizens made him a hero to 
thousands of Americans.
  When asked if any of his associates were Communists, Young told the 
committee that they had him confused with a stool pigeon. When the 
committee lawyer said ``Niggra'' instead of Negro, Young corrected his 
speech and accused him of deliberately slurring the word to insult 
blacks. Young did not mince words about his view of the committee. He 
told them, ``I consider it an un-American activity to pry into a 
person's private thoughts, to pry into a person's associates. I 
consider that an un-American activity.''
  Dave Moore, a longtime associate, recalled the euphoria the testimony 
sparked. ``Coleman Young could have been elected king of Detroit. 
Blacks and whites responded to what he said.''
  But that victory was short-lived. The auto plants still blacklisted 
him. The UAW and other unions slammed the door in his face and the FBI 
put him on its list of dangerous individuals. For years he survived on 
jobs, but never lost his thirst for equality.
  In the 1960's, Young focused on politics as the way to bring about 
necessary change. In 1964, he was elected to the State Senate. He 
quickly rose to leadership and became the first black member of the 
Democratic Natural Committee. In 1973, just six years after a searing 
urban rebellion that charred the heart and the landscape of Detroit, 
Young decided to run for Mayor.

[[Page E56]]

  Young had little money and even less support from the establishment. 
But his insistent call for an end to police brutality resonated among 
both blacks and whites who chafed under an occupying army of hostile 
police. He won the race and became the first black mayor in the city's 
history.
  Young took the reins of a battered and nearly bankrupt city. The 1974 
Oil Embargo nearly decimated Detroit car makers, and the city shuddered 
from a mass exodus of businesses and population. During his 20-year 
tenure, he integrated the Detroit Police Department despite strident 
protests from the police officer's union, established a national 
recognized community crime prevention program and brought the city 
through its financial crisis by forging alliances with political, 
business, union, community and religious leaders. Because of Young's 
success, Henry Ford II described him as ``A damn good business 
manager.''
  Young led the effort to modernize Detroit auto plants and to keep 
major businesses in the city. During his tenure, the Renaissance Center 
opened, the city became a site on the Grand Prix circuit, Detroit saw 
the construction of its first-single family subdivision in decades, and 
the long-neglected river front began to blossom with parks and 
residential developments.
  Mayor Young gave economic opportunity to record numbers of black, 
Hispanic and female business owners. He brought blacks and women into 
government by appointing them to his staff and to head city 
departments. He appointed blacks and whites on a ``50-50'' basis.
  During his lifetime, Young was a past president of the U.S. 
Conference of Mayors and served on the Democratic National Committee 
and the National Conference of Democratic Mayors. He was the recipient 
of the prestigious Jefferson Award from the American Institute for 
Public Service and the NAACP's coveted Springarn medal for 
distinguished achievement. In addition the Congressional Black Caucus 
honored him with its Adam Clayton Powell Award for outstanding 
political leadership. A Congressional Black Caucus tribute to Mayor 
Young is included at the end of these remarks.
  Mayor Young decided against running for office a sixth time because 
of ill health. In his later years, he taught at Wayne State University 
which has an endowed chair in urban affairs named for him. He also 
concentrated his attention on a foundation he established to give 
college scholarships to needy youngsters.
  His survivors include a son, Coleman Young Jr., two sisters, Bernice 
Grier and Juanita Clark, and his companion, Barbara Parker.
  As I said during his funeral service, Coleman Young's leadership and 
courage informed me and every other black politician who stands for 
anything in Michigan. The only way to honor his memory is to keep his 
struggle alive.

                          ____________________