Coleman Alexander Young (May 24, 1918 – November 29, 1997) was an American politician who served as the 66th mayor of Detroit, Michigan from 1974 until 1994. A member of the Democratic Party, Young was the first African-American mayor of Detroit, and has been described as the "single most influential person in Detroit's modern history."
Young had emerged from the far-left element in Detroit, but became an advocate for business interests after his election as mayor. He called an ideological truce and gained widespread support from the city's business leaders. The new mayor energetically promoted downtown redevelopment with major projects like the Joe Louis Arena and the Renaissance Center. Facing intense manufacturing flight, Young worked to keep major plants in the city, most notably General Motors' Poletown project and Chrysler's Jefferson North assembly. Some opponents said that he pulled money out of the neighborhoods to rehabilitate the downtown business district, but he said "there were no other options."
In 1981, Young received the Spingarn Medal for achievement from the NAACP.
Young was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to William Coleman Young, a dry cleaner, and Ida Reese Jones. His family moved in 1923 to Detroit, as part of the Great Migration out of the South to industrial cities that offered more opportunity. His family later converted to Catholicism, though Young was denied entry to a Catholic high school due to his race. Young graduated from Eastern High School in 1935. He became a member of the United Auto Workers, and worked for Ford Motor Company. Later Young worked for the United States Post Office Department.
During World War II, Young served in the 477th Medium-Bomber Group (the renowned Tuskegee Airmen) of the United States Army Air Forces as a second lieutenant, bombardier, and navigator. As a lieutenant in the 477th, Young played a role in the Freeman Field Mutiny in 1945. Some 162 African-American officers were arrested for resisting segregation at a base near Seymour, Indiana.
In the 1940s, Young was labelled a fellow traveler of the Communist Party by belonging to groups whose members also belonged to the Party, and was accused of being a former member. Young's involvement in worker-oriented organizations, including the Progressive Party, the United Auto Workers and the National Negro Labor Council, made him a target of anti-Communist investigators, including the FBI and HUAC. He protested segregation in the Army and racial discrimination in the UAW. In 1948, Young supported Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace.
In 1952, Young stunned observers when he appeared before the McCarthy era House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and defied the congressmen. He made sarcastic retorts and repeatedly cited the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer whether or not he was a member of the Communist Party. The encounter came at a highly publicized formal hearing in Detroit. Young's performance made him a hero in Detroit's growing black community. To a committee member's statement that he seemed reluctant to fight communism, Young said: "I am not here to fight in any un-American activities, because I consider the denial of the right to vote to large numbers of people all over the South un-American." To the HUAC congressman from Georgia, he said: "I happen to know, in Georgia, Negro people are prevented from voting by virtue of terror, intimidation and lynchings. It is my contention you would not be in Congress today if it were not for the legal restrictions on voting on the part of my people."
He said to another HUAC congressman:
"Congressman, neither me or none of my friends were at this plant the other day brandishing a rope in the face of John Cherveny, a young union organizer and factory worker who was threatened with repeated violence after members of the HUAC alleged that he might be a communist, I can assure you I have had no part in the hanging or bombing of Negroes in the South. I have not been responsible for firing a person from his job for what I think are his beliefs, or what somebody thinks he believes in, and things of that sort. That is the hysteria that has been swept up by this committee."
According to historians Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes and Ronald Radosh, Coleman Young was "a secret CPUSA [Communist Party USA] member."
Young built his political base in Detroit on the East Side in the 1940s and 1950s, which had become a center of the African-American community. In 1960, he was elected as a delegate to help draft a new state constitution for Michigan.
In 1964, Young won election to the Michigan State Senate. His most significant legislation was a law requiring arbitration in disputes between public-sector unions and municipalities. During his senate career, he also pointed out inequities in Michigan state funding, "spending $20 million on rural bus service and a fat zero for the same thing in Detroit."
Coleman Young decided to run for mayor of Detroit in 1973. At the forefront of his campaign, he sought to address the increasing police violence suffered by black residents in the city. By 1972, the black population in Detroit was nearly half of the population – but was patrolled disproportionately by a white police department. Specifically, Young notified Police Commissioner John Nichols that the police decoy unit, STRESS (Stop the Robberies and Enjoy Safe Streets), was a major racially charged problem of the city. Officers deployed under STRESS had been accused of killing 22 people and arresting hundreds without cause during its 2+1⁄2 years of operation. In his campaign, Young quoted "one of the problems is that the police run the city… STRESS is responsible for the explosive polarization that now exists; STRESS is an execution squad rather than an enforcement squad. As mayor, I will get rid of STRESS". The police responded by endorsing John Nichols, the Police Commissioner who was running for mayor against Coleman Young.
Throughout the campaign, Young had an edge over Nichols due to both a growing black population base and due to his broad political experience in local, state, and national politics. In opposition, Nichols took advantage of the white fear of black crime in the street in order to advance his campaign. Nichols represented a national trend of increased police power and brutality in post-riot cities, and therefore, in Young's opinion, had to be defeated. While neither candidate openly spoke about race, after the fact, Young admitted that in 1973, “the race was about race”. Both mayoral candidates were conscious of the high racial tensions in the city, but both attempted to appeal to all groups.
In November 1973, Young narrowly defeated Nichols for mayor, becoming the first black mayor of Detroit. His election represented a major turning point in both the city's racial and political history. In his inaugural address, Mayor Young stated that “the first problem that we must face as citizens of this great city, the first fact that we must look squarely in the eye, is that this city has too long been polarized”. He stated that "we can no longer afford the luxury of hatred and racial division. What is good for the black people of this city is good for the white people of this city. What is good for the rich people of this city is good for the poor people of this city. What is good for those who live in the suburbs is good for those of us who live in the central city". Winning by such a small margin in a racially polarized city, Young knew the burden he would have to shoulder as mayor.
Young served five terms as mayor of Detroit from 1974 to 1994. Young won re-election by wide margins in 1977, 1981, 1985 and 1989, to serve a total of 20 years as mayor, based largely on black votes.
As mayor during his first term, Young promptly disbanded the STRESS unit, began efforts to integrate the police department and increased patrols in high crime neighborhoods utilizing a community policing approach. Young's effect on integrating the Detroit Police Department was successful; the proportion of blacks rose to more than 50 percent in 1993 from less than 10 percent in 1974 and has remained at about that level. Both actions were credited with reducing the number of brutality complaints against the city's police to 825 in 1982 from 2,323 in 1975.