what’s happening TEDx Detroit y’all look
great
how you doing I’m Carrie I’m Carrie
Turner I’m executive director of Coleman
a young foundation our office is located
right next door where the film or
theater is very glad to be with you this
morning but I have to stop and tell you
I have a very tough and unfair job this
morning because my job is not only to be
your calibration speaker so to speak
your sacrificial guy but I have a
responsibility of taking this man and
putting him in context in eight minutes
you guys know who this is
yeah this is Coleman Alexander Young
first african-american mayor of the city
of Detroit served five terms 20 years
and if you know anything about this man
you know that putting his life and his
career in context in eight minutes is
pretty much like feeding a tic-tac to a
gnat
but I think I’ve got a way to do it see
I get I get it you either like Coleman
young or you don’t like Coleman young
you either turned off as soon as he had
that inaugural address where he told the
pimps and criminals and pushers to hit 8
Mile Road because you thought he was
pushing his problems on the Oakland
County or you love him because he came
in and changed everything that was
negative about your community but I’m
not here to ask you to love or like him
I’m asking us all to get on the same
page and recognize that if anything
Coleman Young was an icon now let me
push this ideas step further and suggest
that Coleman Young was an idea but he
was specifically an idea of what it
takes to love a city as toughest Detroit
in a way that moves it forward sometimes
in spite of itself what was he he was
bold brave boisterous black badass but
he was also scholarly and he was also
incredibly funny as a matter of fact I
can think of a couple of exam
that illustrate how he demonstrated his
love to Detroit because I’m clear when
most of us think of love we think of
romantic love I’m feeding you ice cream
out of a cup and that or not when the
truth is the kind of love this man had
for the city of Detroit his people was
more like what you get from your daddy
or your mama take this very room for
example isn’t this a beautiful theater I
remember when it was on its way to being
demolished but Mayor Young felt that
this very place could become the
cornerstone of a new theater district in
Detroit so he contacted Mike Ilitch who
at the time was busy building his own
headquarters in Oakland County and he
convinced him to renovate it and what
sprung up around the Fox is what we now
know as the biggest theater district
east of the Mississippi River with the
exception of New York City that takes
vision and sometimes love takes vision
it also takes a whole bunch of
creativity if I think about the Joe
Louis Arena how many of you have been to
a hockey game or concert of to Joe just
most of the people in this room as I
expected well if you know history you
may remember when the Red Wings had one
foot out the door they were going to
leave town and set up digs in Oakland
County nothing wrong with that it’s a
business decision but mayor young felt
that a viable downtown had to have its
sports franchise located right here so
he asked and pleaded for one more
opportunity to pitch a plan and then get
this with no plan no construction design
no blueprint he took five million
dollars that he found in the city’s
budget and simply dug a hole and that
hole ended up getting filled by the joke
as a result you’ve gotten a chance to
celebrate multiple championships right
here in the city of Detroit and now the
Red Wings are getting ready to become
the newest residents to that big old
theater district that has developed but
again my friends that is what love does
sometimes it gets creative beyond itself
I’ll tell you another thing love also is
damn tenacious when it has to be what do
I mean by that
sometimes the mayor’s initiatives and
the young administration’s initial
had to be pushed when the city itself
rallied against it the old Chrysler
Jefferson plant that’s over on on
Jefferson on the deep east side that
thing had to be built but before he
built it before Chrysler built they
built it the young administration had to
clear an entire neighborhood you know
what that looks like I’ll break it down
for you it’s 4,000 residents it’s 2,000
pieces of property 1,300 houses
116 churches because we do Church in
Detroit two schools and the old Dodge
Bain plant and on top of that residents
in the community cried that the city was
practicing eminent domain taken their
land and the mayor had to push through
all that in less than 12 months but as a
result what exists there now employs
3,000 people over two shifts they build
the Chevy Volt there and they avoided an
additional 30 years of decay that would
have been on set so while the people
cried let me keep what I have now the
mayor actually saw that there was a way
to keep that neighborhood and community
from dying along three decades slow
death that is tenacity but beyond that
it’s justice for the people there and
there was no other person better suited
to talk about justice you’re talking
about a man who was accepted and offered
an academic scholarship to the
University of Michigan only to have room
and board denied because they found out
he was a black man go blue you’re
talking about a man who was thrown in an
army stockade as a Tuskegee Airmen
because he simply tried to integrate an
all-white officer’s club you’re talking
about a man who in 1952 at the age of 33
was accused by the McCarthy regime of
being a communist and pulled and forced
to testify in front of the house on
American Activities Committee stick a
pin in that four minute 1952 33 years
old black male you can cancel Christmas
in most cases but in a testimony that
became historic Coleman Young rallied
fought even scolded the committee and
then when he became
here many thought that he had every
right to pick a bone because of his own
personal past but the first thing he did
was take the police department in the
city and take it from 85% white to 50/50
then in the first time in history that
it had ever been done he did the same
thing with his with his administration
listen I get it people call the mayor
divisive separatists a bully
they called him racist I simply suggest
that he had a different kind of way of
loving the people of Detroit and loving
the city you don’t have to love or like
somebody to love them I’m here to tell
you if you don’t know or have never
really thought deeply about what love
does I would suggest to you that love is
not about respect love is not about like
it’s about respect and I don’t like
talking about love I prefer to take
steps that’s because love hurts like
life but life is all love it’s like one
day you get a push for your shove the
next day you turn a vulture to add of
hermetic law said so below so above we
spell it L I V l.o.v.e bottom line for
living says G OD you rearranged life to
l.o.v.e and we all Li ve Godley my
friends there is a reason that the
Detroit Free Press called this man one
of the top five mayor’s in Detroit’s
history and it’s not because he’s the
last guy in 50 years to leave the city
and a budget surplus his final act of
love was taking his remaining wealth
which was about three million dollars in
giving half to Wayne State and then half
to endow the foundation that employs me
as a result we’ve helped about 500 kids
from the city of Detroit get to and
through college 90% of them graduated
60% of them came home to work and live
here that’s not divisive ‘no stop
that’s context tic-tac have a great day you all