The effort to install a statue of former Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young at the U.S. Capitol is moving forward thanks to backing from local financiers, officials said in a news release this week.
The official launch celebration of the Coleman A. Young Statue Initiative is set for Tuesday, Oct. 20 at the Charles H. Wright Museum. The Coleman A. Young Foundation will bring together elected officials, civic and community leaders, and Young family representatives to announce major milestones in the effort to place a statue of Detroit’s first Black mayor in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection.
Officials at the event are expected to announce new financial backers, including the Ilitch family, Bedrock and DTE Foundation.
“This process usually takes about six to eight years,” former state Sen. Adam Hollier told Michigan Chronicle. “The announcement is to talk about the progress that we’ve made and that the commission is up and going, and to let people know that this is happening.”
The Michigan Legislature in 2022 passed a resolution selecting Young to replace the statue of Lewis Cass currently inside the building.
Statues of two notable figures from each state are placed throughout the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D.C. Mayor Young’s statue would join a select group of Black leaders honored in the National Statuary Hall Collection. In 2013, longtime Detroit resident and Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks became the first Black person to have a full-length statue in Statuary Hall.
The commissioned sculptor of the project is local artist Austen Brantley. Brantley was recetnly selected sculpt a new statue of sports icon Joe Louis for the Joe Louis Greenway. He also created the sculpture of the late Lt. Col. Alexander Jefferson for Jefferson Plaza in Rouge Park.
Hollier, the runner-up in his state Senate primary race this past August, says the effort spawned after discussions around tearing down statues of leaders sympathetic to slavery during the 2020 social justice movement.
“I decided that we should replace the statue of Lewis Cass in the nation’s capital with Mary Young, and everybody thought that I was being crazy,” Hollier said. “This whole effort kicked off with Mayor (Mike) Duggan and me and council president (Mary) Sheffield… So it’s kind of full circle.”
The effort to honor Detroit’s first Black mayor is among his final achievements as a state lawmaker.
Hollier said the next step in the process is for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is expected to appear at the event on Tuesday, to send a letter to the U.S. Capitol architect saying, “Hey, we would like you to replace this statue with this person, and this is what you’re going to do with that other statue.”
Officials expected to be in attendance include Marvin Beatty and Khary Turner of the Coleman A. Young Foundation, Wendy L. Jackson of the Kresge Foundation, Mayor Mary Sheffield and Wayne County executive Warren Evans.