Dearborn mayor’s legacy echoes in policing

Erasing physical reminders of the past is hard. But trying to scrub the bitter, segregationist reputation of Orville Hubbard from Dearborn’s brand is proving even even harder.

Or at least that’s what some disturbing data about racial disparities in policing there suggest.

Hubbard, who was elected as Dearborn’s mayor in 1942 and re-elected 14 times before a stroke sidelined him in 1976, was shameless in promoting his city’s reputation as a sanctuary from everything white suburbanites disliked about Detroit, especially Black Detroiters.

Hubbard’s successors and constituents kept his legacy alive long after his death. In 1985, after residents adopted an ordinance that barred Detroiters from Dearborn parks, a young Rev. Wendell Anthony launched a boycott of retailers at Fairlane Mall, where security guards had a well-deserved reputation for harassing Black teenagers.

Fifteen years later, thousands demonstrated outside the mall Detroiter Frederick Findlay was choked to death outside a Fairlane department store by a security guard who suspected Finlay’s 11-year old daughter of shoplifting a $4 bracelet.

And just last week, Dearborn reached a $1.25 million civil settlement in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man who was accused of stealing an energy drink in 2015. He was shot nine times.

Well into the 21st Century, a statue of Hubbard erected in 1989 waved to passers-by outside Dearborn’s city hall. The late mayor’s smiling likeness mocked me whenever my work took me to the city, reminding me how unwelcome I and other Black men had been and remained.

It wasn’t until 2015 that the statue was finally moved inside the Dearborn Historical Museum. Last June, the week George Floyd’s suffocated under the knee of a white police officer, the statue was removed altogether, and Dearborn leaders have been busy removing Hubbard’s name and likeness from other municipal venues, including the the ballroom in the auditorium of the city’s civic center and the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center.

Deeper scars

All these gestures are long overdue. Monuments and plaques honoring a mayor who gloried in racial slurs and warned that mixing of the races lead inexorably to the downfall of civilizations have no place in 2021. But other, deeper scars of Hubbard’s legacy endure.

Dearborn is growing more ethnically diverse by the day. The city’s Arab population, hard to quantify because the Census doesn’t count residents of Middle Eastern descent separately, is a major and growing presence. Blacks still account for just 3% to 4% of Dearborn’s

93,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census.

But in 2019, 58.6% of those arrested in the city were Black people, according to data obtained by Accountability for Dearborn, a watchdog group. That’s up from 48.6% of arrests a decade ago.

In addition, the group found, 47.7% of all citations issued by Dearborn police, such as traffic tickets, were given to Black people in 2019. About three-quarters of arrests in Dearborn in 2019 were made by the Border Crimes Initiative Team, which focuses on areas of Dearborn that border Detroit.

Dearborn police department counter that he percentage of Black people given citations in 2020 decreased to 39%. But those numbers were almost certainly impacted by the ongoing pandemic.

City streets aren’t as bustling as they were before last March. The Ford Motor Company headquarters and other nearby facilities are closed. Fewer motorists were also traveling through Dearborn to eat or shop.

Beyond eradicating symbols

So Accountability for Dearborn has made at least a prima facie case that Dearborn police are arresting and citing a strikingly disproportionate number of Black people. The group suggests Dearborn cops have targeted low-income Detroiters for smaller infractions like driving with a suspended license, failing to show license or proof of registration and no lacking proof proof of insurance. It is calling for Dearborn leaders to reduce spending on police and crack down on what they see as racial targeting.

Dearborn is no different than many other metro Detroit suburbs. Redford Township, Warren, Oak Park, Westland, Livonia, Harper Woods, the Pointes and Shelby Township are just a few of the municipalities in which many Black motorists feel targeted. Courtrooms packed with people of color waiting to answer summonses for traffic violations give credence to their concerns.

And Dearborn leaders have properly taken steps to distance themselves from Hubbard’s legacy. Doing it during this period in our country’s history shows they acknowledge Hubbard’s divisive — and racist — past.

Now the challenge for the city’s leaders is to make the harder choice to improve race relations and increase minority hiring throughout the city, especially in the police department. Depending on whose statistics you rely on, only 6 to 8% of the department’s employees are Black.

Dearborn’s incumbent mayor, John “Jack” O’Reilly, is not seeking re-election when his current term expires at the end of this year. Whoever succeeds him will inherit the urgent challenge of diversifying the city’s workforce

Diversity is not just a catch phrase. It’s a commitment. Now is the time for Dearborn to make that choice.