The wit and wisdom of Mayor Coleman A. Young

Ebony, Feb, 1998

POLITICS

ON BEING ASKED BY A CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE TO INFORM ON HIS UNION COLLEAGUES (1952)

"You have me mixed up with a stool pigeon."

ON WHETHER A MICHIGAN GOVERNOR MIGHT GROW IN OFFICE

"You don't grow balls. Either you got 'em or you don't."

ON THE SUGGESTION OF A FRIEND THAT HE GIVE UP HIS LIMOUSINE DURING THE OIL BOYCOTT

"What do you think would happen if the first Black mayor of Detroit went tooling down Woodward in a Rambler?"

ON CHARGES THAT HE WAS AN IMPERIAL MAYOR WITH FANCY CLOTHES AND A BIG CAR

"A lot of that, I believe, is just plain racism. Every previous mayor drove around in limousines, and I don't remember any of them with their a-- hanging out."

ON ACCEPTING THE RESIGNATION OF A TRANSPORTATION DIRECTOR SHORTLY AFTER HE HAD PROCLAIMED THE BUS SYSTEM "DAMNED NEAR A SHAMBLES"

"I think he knew that I was dissatisfied, and being a Harvard graduate, he started looking around."

ON RONALD REAGAN, BEFORE HE WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT

"Pruneface."

ON RONALD REAGAN, AFTER HE WAS ELECTED

"President Pruneface."

ON A TV ANCHORMAN WHO DEFENDED HIM FOLLOWING AN ABC-TV SHOW THAT RIPPED DETROIT

"Being rescued by _____ is an experience quite new to me. I never know whether he's the light at the end of the tunnel or the headlight of the locomotive."

HIS ADVICE TO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE JIMMY CARTER, WHO WAS APOLOGIZING FOR HAVING ADVOCATED THE "ETHNIC PURITY" OF NEIGHBORHOODS IN THE 1980 CAMPAIGN

"Get up off your knees and keep on walking."

ON HIS PERSONAL POLITICAL PRIORITIES

"Black man first and a Democrat second."

RACISM

ON RACIAL SEPARATISM

"The last man who tried that was Jeff Davis. He had an army and everything and still didn't win."

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

"Some people say affirmative action is discrimination in reverse. You're damned right. The only way to handle discrimination is to reverse it."

ON WHY HE REFUSED TO SUPPORT LOCAL ANTI-GUN LAWS

"I'll be damned if I'm going to let them collect guns is the city of Detroit while we're surrounded by hostile suburbs and the whole rest of the state who have guns, and where you have vigilantes practicing Ku Khux Klan in the wilderness with automatic weapons."

DURING A TRIP TO JAPAN, ON BEING ASKED TO FOLLOW A JAPANESE HOST WHO HAD DONNED A KIMONO AND PERFORMED A 400-YEAR-OLD WARRIOR DANCE WITH A SPEAR AND FAN

"I hate to disillusion you, but I can't dance and I can't sing. And I don't like watermelon either."

ON WHITES AND POWER

"White people find it extremely hard to live in an environment they don't control."

ON EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

"Affirmative action and equal opportunity for all. What I say to you is not anti-White. It's not anti-anybody. It's pro-everybody."

ON WHITE BENEFITING FROM BLACK LIBERATION

"No White person can be hurt by a positive struggle for Black rights. What is good for Black folks, who are at the lowest level of economic and social structure in this day, is good for all folks, is good for White folks. By the same token, that which injures Black injures all. That's a hard lesson. Sometimes those who preach it die by racist acts. Others will follow to tell the story. It's the only route I know to freedom."

ON PUTTING BLACKS IN KEY JOBS IN CITY HALL

"That means more at the top for Blacks, for there ain't no shortage of Blacks out there behind them garbage trucks."

LANGUAGE

ON BEING TOLD IN JAPAN BY AN ELDERLY INTERPRETER THAT THERE ARE MANY JAPANESE WORDS THAT HAVE DIFFERENT MEANINGS DEPENDING ON THE TONE OF VOICE

"Oh, yes. We have words like that in English, too -- MF."

ON DETROIT-BASHING

"We must not let the doomsayers and the naysayers cause us to lose faith in our city, in ourselves and in each other. Much of the negative propaganda with which we are bombarded is calculated to disarm you. Without love and without hope there can be no future for anyone.

ON THE LEGACY OF BLACK LEADERS SUCH AS COLEMAN YOUNG

"Those of us who are passing off the scene, like Nelson Mandela, like me, like Martin, who is already gone, we're passing on to you who are coming on the scene, the torch. You should be thrilled with the opportunity that you have to complete the revolution."