'Relic of Racism': Group Seeks Removal of Former Mayor's Statue

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Michigan wants Dearborn officials to remove from public property a statue of former longtime mayor Orville Hubbard, an outspoken segregationist. (Photo via Wikimedia/Creative Commons)

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On city owned property at Michigan and Schaefer stands a 10-foot bronze edifice that is seen, depending on who is asked, as either a monument to the city’s golden era or – as the civil rights group that wants it removed from public property suggests – a “relic of racism.”

The statue honors Orville Hubbard, who served as mayor for 36 years from 1942-1978, during the post World War II era when Dearborn, home of Ford Motor Co., was considered Detroit’s most important suburb.

Among many, Hubbard is regarded as a pioneer who delivered a wide range of services to residents. But to others, the smiling, waving statue is as racially charged as the Confederate flag, under renewed scrutiny as a racist symbol in the weeks since an allegedly racist white gunman killed nine African-Americans during a prayer meeting in a historic Charleston, SC, church.

To its critics, Dearborn’s commemorative statue is a glaring contradiction to “his painful platform of segregation … still felt today in Dearborn and Detroit,” American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Michigan Executive Director Fatina Abdrabboh said in a statement announcing the group‘s call on city leaders to retire the Hubbard statue.

ADC-Michigan also asked the Dearborn City Council to “formally acknowledge and disavow [the city’s] racist past of segregation and intolerance.”

Abdrabboh said Hubbard, who reportedly “used every racial slur imaginable,” was the chief architect of a campaign called “Keep Dearborn Clean” that actually was a euphemism widely interpreted to mean “Keep Dearborn White.” Hubbard reportedly went so far as to have the slogan emblazoned on police cars.

Tell Us:

• Take the statue down or leave it in place? Why or why not?

Hubbard made no apologies for his views during a 1969 interview with The New York Times, which later wrote that “Hubbard’s Dearborn is a symbol of the deep-seated racism of the North,” according to a retrospective on Deadline Detroit written by one of the website’s co-founders, Bill McGraw.

Hubbard peppered his interview with both profanities and racial slurs, yet professed not to hate African-Americans.

“ ...Christ, I don’t even dislike them,” he told The Times. “But if whites don’t want to live with (racial slur), they sure as hell don’t have to. Dammit, this is a free country. This is America.”

He added: “I favor segregation. Because, if you favor integration, you first have kids going to school together, then the next thing you know, they’re grab-assing around, then they’re getting married and having half-breed kids. Then you wind up with a mongrel race. And from what I know of history, that’s the end of civilization.”

Cities Nationwide Jettisoning Racist Symbols

ADC-Michigan’s call for the statue’s removal comes at a time of a cultural shift that, though sudden, has been decades in the making. Pictures showing Dylann Roof, the suspect in the Charleston church massacre, brandishing the Confederate flag have renewed long-standing debates over whether the flag honors the South’s history, or flies as a snapping reminder of war fought largely to guarantee the continued enslavement of African-Americans.

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In an opinion piece published Friday in the Detroit Free Press, Abdrabboh wrote that “while we may not have a Confederate flag waving atop our buildings, this larger-than-life statue of Hubbard memorializes and celebrates a man who symbolizes the same kind of intolerance for many.”

She wrote that many in Dearborn share her call for the city to “follow in the steps of other cities nationwide and remove the symbols from the public sphere that stand as a reminder of racism.”

“We understand that Hubbard and his statue are aspects of our city’s history, but that is exactly what they need to be viewed as – history – which is not always without shame,” she wrote. “The danger of normalizing such symbols is that by tolerating racism we run the risk of enabling dominant culture to embed and justify deep inequalities in our society.”

Below are excerpts from ADC Michigan’s letter to the Dearborn City Council:

“ … We do not seek to diminish Mayor Hubbard’s accomplishments. However, we ask that the Mayor’s role in maintaining a system of racial oppression be properly exposed and acknowledged. Mayor Orville Hubbard’s statue is a symbol of decades of racial segregation that brutally divided the men and women of both the Dearborn and Detroit communities.

“Hubbard was very vocal about his favorable attitude towards segregation and used his power to fuel racial antagonisms, preach white supremacy and maintain the color line at the Dearborn-Detroit border. Hubbard often rallied against miscegenation and turned a blind eye towards racially motivated violence. Hubbard based his support of this continued oppression on the belief that Caucasian Americans had a right to live separately from African Americans. As a city that boasts diversity, with a growing African American population and internationally recognized Middle Eastern community, this statue has no place remaining in its present location.

“Cities across America continue to struggle to build strong, cohesive communities in the face of historic racial and ethnic discrimination; Dearborn is certainly no exception. ADC has witnessed a steady rise in reports of discrimination against Arab-Americans in Dearborn and the surrounding areas.

“It is clear that the prejudice practiced by Hubbard continues to have modern day ramifications. We have a duty to our community to remove this symbol of past oppression and work on paving the way towards a more just future.

Please support the removal of the statue of Mayor Orville Hubbard as his effigy is a painful reminder to the citizens of Dearborn of the racial intolerance that was once implemented in policy.

“We urge the City Council and its members to take a stance on this issue and join us as well as fellow members of the community in seeking a solution that is amicable for all parties.”

Neither Mayor John B. O’Reilly Jr. nor Mary Laundroche, Dearborn’s director of public information, immediately returned Patch’s emails and phone calls.