Talk:Coleman Young

Coleman was a lousy crime-fighter, Detroit was crack & gang utopia in his day
This is an amazing statement. Is his sons PR firm editing this page?

He kept well organized street gangs out of Detroit.

Long before the Bloods and the Crips detroit was riddled with major street gangs, gangs that other black gangs and crime fighting organizations nationwide today acknowlege were the prototypes for other black drug gangs.

Wikipedia itself has a great article on the Errol Flynn's located here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Errol_Flynns

It says, in part:

The Errol Flynns evolved, like other Detroit street gangs such as their Westside Detroit counterparts in the late 70's the Nasty Flynns (later the NF Bangers) and Black Killers" or drug consortiums of the 1980's such as Young Boys Inc., Pony Down, Best Friends, Black Mafia Family and the Chambers Brothers, out of the racial and economic unrest that transformed Detroit in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Anyone with even passing knowledge of Detroit crime, or who bothers to go read the half dozen articles linked from the one above will see that the claim made in this article is pathetic self-serving LIE. I am therefore removing it, as well as related claims that he kept crack out of Detroit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.32.253.72 (talk) 18:05, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

DET
Wouldn't it also be notable to mention that the airport is named after him? Coleman A. Young Municipalcipal Airport (DET).

No, it would not. The principal airport of Detroit is Metropolitan Airport (DTW), which is located in Romulus, a suburb Southwest of Detroit. DET, formerly known as City Airport, is a landlocked small airport inside the city. John Paul Parks (talk) 06:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I removed this from the article: ''By the late 1980s, Detroit would be called "our first third world city." It had the poverty, the politics of liberation from colonial rule, and dictatorial leader. People spoke of 1973 as Detroit's year of independence. It seems rather POV, and I grew up in Detroit in the 1960s and 1970s and never heard the anything about Detroit's year of independence, although I image that someone'' used it somewhere at some point. -- BCorr | &#1041;&#1088;&#1072;&#1081;&#1077;&#1085; 03:43, May 26, 2004 (UTC)


 * Along the lines of the above, I just removed the following:
 * However you spin Young's legacy the facts speak for themselves, Detriot sufferend economic and politcal decay during his tenure. Although the allegations against him for any wrong doing were never proven, all one has to do is visit Detriot today to see the results of his guided leadership.
 * It's simply not NPOV. Yeechang Lee 22:11, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I am wondering about the source of the labor cost data, and what year it is from. The above text identifies the period of the mid 1970s, but there is no specific dating.Ionesco 17:21, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

labor costs
The information came from a book late 1970's book called "Can Cities Survive?" dinopup

Who's writing these snippets on Detroit's mayors? He/she's blaming the very unions that created our standard of living for the demise of Detroit, the riots and Mayor Young's difficulty running the city. That's as idiotic as blaming the Avian Flu on Osama bin Laden.

Coleman Young quotes
I think that the quotes (which have been added, deleted, added again) are unhelpful and biased. Without them, the article already makes it clear that Mayor Young believed that vulgar expletives were appropriate in public discourse. Whoever felt it necessary to quote Mayor Young can either balance the existing quotes with some displaying intelligence and compassion, of which Mayor Young had plenty, or I'll gladly delete them again.

Civil Rights Activist?
Wouldn't it also be helpful to add the fact that Coleman Young was an open racist whose comments about whites may have contributed to the "White Flight" phenomenon? Also, isn't it worth mentioning that his disbanding of the STRESS police and his advocacy for convicted felons in the police force (ostensibly to increase the number of blacks on the force) may also have contributed to the increases in crime rates and police corruption?
 * Usually you get a better response to these sorts of questions if you are a registered user. Discussing contraversial stuff with annon posters is rarely satisfying - anywhere. Carptrash 19:45, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I honestly didn't believe that I was writing anything controversial. He often slandered whites in his speeches and in interviews - even going so far as to tell them to leave the city. Also, he did support the disbandment of the STRESS unit and he did advocate for easing the felony restriction on police hires. I can understand why some individuals would find these actions objectionable, but I cannot see why they would find the statement of them controversial. Hibbity Jibbity 22:08, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Coleman A. Young was a racist. He is the reason why the Detroit economy is still struggling, why come back to the city when you were not welcomed before by a man who ran the city??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.42.150.55 (talk) 05:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Still Struggling? You mean dead, don't you? Prior to his tenure as mayor, Detroit was a thriving beautiful city, now look at it. The results of his administration stand alone. Yes, he was an open rascist and his encouragement toward his own race led to the open crime and highest unemployment in the nation. Bugguyak (talk) 16:35, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Well I'm a registered user (and from Detroit) and I agree that this article neglects to mention the possible negative aspects of Young's tenure as mayor. He played a substantial role in the "White Flight" (rather intentional or not). Ask a black Detroiter and he'll usually tell you he was the best mayor of the city--ask a white one the same queston, and more than likely tell you that he was amongst the worst. And by the way Carptrash, there is no need to be so unkind to our non-registered users. Everyone has the right to have an opinion, and he's/she's certainly not unfounded.--NewChampion (talk) 18:04, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

>>> This page is a mess so I'm not sure where to put this. I'm originally from Detroit, and I've certainly heard a lot of stories about corruption under Mayor Young's administration (and after). I won't repeat any here because they're second hand, but someone might want to consider it for a more complete discussion.

It's simplistic to the point of ignorance to blame Coleman Young for white flight from Detroit. You can't have a serious discussion of 'white flight' without talking about redlining and discriminatory lending policies, including by the FHA. Neighborhoods were considered undesirable (by the FHA, etc.) explicitly because black people lived there. Blacks couldn't get loans and weren't allowed to buy in 'white' areas. With less 'demand' (in dollar terms) for housing in predominantly 'black' areas, property values dropped, thus reinforcing the cycle.

In short, white flight and the decay of inner cities is not an accident. It didn't 'just happen'. It was the predictable outcome of explicitly racist practices in lending, real estate, insurance, etc. See here for more.

(I'm white, not that that should matter. But in Detroit, color always matters.)

Social Norm (talk) 07:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Here we go again, with another wailing lament about "discrimination," and how blacks have not been able to buy property in Detroit. The city has been majority black since about 1970, and is over 90% black today. There is obviously no restriction on blacks owning or using property in Detroit today, and there has not been for a long time. Yet, except for the area on Jefferson near the Detroit River, the city is a wall-to-wall slum that looks like a combat zone. Why does the city look like that? Was Orville Hubbard right when he told us what Dearborn would look like if his exclusionary policy was not followed? If you want to prove Mayor Hubbard wrong, clean up Detroit! It is your city now. John Paul Parks (talk) 06:14, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

12th street riots
Would a mention of the "12th street riots" in Detroit of July 1967 be appropriate here? I believe they helped prepare the ground for his eventual election.

Here's the wiki link;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_Street_Riot

- Meltingpot

Meltingpot 20:28, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Mayor Young was a state senator during the '67 Insurrection. It would have only indirectly touched on his responsibilities. It of course would more properly be referenced in an article about Detroit, or one about the then Mayor, Jerome Cavanagh although if any sourced material about Young's reactions at the time might be proper to the article. Edivorce (talk) 02:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The 1967 riots contributed to Coleman Young's election only in the sense that riots promptly many whites to flee for the suburbs or even move out of state to places like Arizona and Florida, leaving blacks effectively in control of the city, and thus free to elect the Mayor and Common Council of their own choosing. John Paul Parks (talk) 06:17, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The riots did nothing to reverse the trend of Detroiters' move to the suburbs: but it also didn't accerlate it. The rate of decline in the 1960 census was actually greater than the 1970 census that followed the riots. The underground trade of hard drugs, though, has done a number on Detroit. Thestrengthsofcow (talk) 22:24, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

"Effective Affirmative Action" on the Police Force?
"He implemented effective affirmative action programs that lead to successful integration."

He hired blacks directly out of prison to become police officers. So, like many or most affirmative action programs, it was "effective" for the blacks involved and disastrous for everyone else.

The quoted statement is controversial at best. HedgeFundBob (talk) 12:22, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Muddled POV on Crime Fighting Ability
The statement "Young has been widely credited with keeping well organized street gangs out of Detroit, thus postponing the introduction of crack cocaine into the city of Detroit for several years. Crime rates in Detroit peaked under Mayor Young at more than 2,700 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 1994" is hopelessly muddled.

He kept "well organized" street gangs out of Detroit? Does that mean poorly-organized gangs were allowed inside the city. If "[c]rime rates in Detroit peaked under [Coleman] Young" then he had no beneficial effect on the crime rate, and the article needs to be rewritten to eliminate the pro-Young POV.

Coleman Young, racist, is widely perceived as the beginning of the end of a once-great city. A city that gave the nation the mass-produced automobile, the paved highway, and a standard of living second to none, and which also served as the "arsenal of democracy" during the Second World War. Today, except for the area on Jefferson near the river, Detroit is a wall-to-wall slum. John Paul Parks (talk) 06:03, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

DET
Wouldn't it also be notable to mention that the airport is named after him? Coleman A. Young Municipalcipal Airport (DET).

I removed this from the article: ''By the late 1980s, Detroit would be called "our first third world city." It had the poverty, the politics of liberation from colonial rule, and dictatorial leader. People spoke of 1973 as Detroit's year of independence. It seems rather POV, and I grew up in Detroit in the 1960s and 1970s and never heard the anything about Detroit's year of independence, although I image that someone'' used it somewhere at some point. -- BCorr | &#1041;&#1088;&#1072;&#1081;&#1077;&#1085; 03:43, May 26, 2004 (UTC)

By 1973, most hardworking taxpayers had declared their independence and had moved out of Detroit. John Paul Parks (talk) 06:07, 4 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Along the lines of the above, I just removed the following:
 * However you spin Young's legacy the facts speak for themselves, Detriot sufferend economic and politcal decay during his tenure. Although the allegations against him for any wrong doing were never proven, all one has to do is visit Detriot today to see the results of his guided leadership.
 * It's simply not NPOV. Yeechang Lee 22:11, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I am wondering about the source of the labor cost data, and what year it is from. The above text identifies the period of the mid 1970s, but there is no specific dating.Ionesco 17:21, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

labor costs
The information came from a book late 1970's book called "Can Cities Survive?" dinopup

Who's writing these snippets on Detroit's mayors? He/she's blaming the very unions that created our standard of living for the demise of Detroit, the riots and Mayor Young's difficulty running the city. That's as idiotic as blaming the Avian Flu on Osama bin Laden.

Coleman Young quotes
I think that the quotes (which have been added, deleted, added again) are unhelpful and biased. Without them, the article already makes it clear that Mayor Young believed that vulgar expletives were appropriate in public discourse. Whoever felt it necessary to quote Mayor Young can either balance the existing quotes with some displaying intelligence and compassion, of which Mayor Young had plenty, or I'll gladly delete them again.

Civil Rights Activist?
Wouldn't it also be helpful to add the fact that Coleman Young was an open racist whose comments about whites may have contributed to the "White Flight" phenomenon? Also, isn't it worth mentioning that his disbanding of the STRESS police and his advocacy for convicted felons in the police force (ostensibly to increase the number of blacks on the force) may also have contributed to the increases in crime rates and police corruption?
 * Usually you get a better response to these sorts of questions if you are a registered user. Discussing contraversial stuff with annon posters is rarely satisfying - anywhere. Carptrash 19:45, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I honestly didn't believe that I was writing anything controversial. He often slandered whites in his speeches and in interviews - even going so far as to tell them to leave the city. Also, he did support the disbandment of the STRESS unit and he did advocate for easing the felony restriction on police hires. I can understand why some individuals would find these actions objectionable, but I cannot see why they would find the statement of them controversial. Hibbity Jibbity 22:08, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

It would be nice if the Wayne State Univ History Dept reviewed this link. Coleman Young was controversial to whites BECAUSE HE WAS OUTSPOKEN. Coleman Young DID NOT cause the decline of Detroit, that was happening LONG BEFORE he was mayor. Any true scholar of history would know that several complex social and economic elements contributed to Detroit's condition (e.g. Read the Origins of the Urban Crisis:Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit by Thomas Sugrue). Racism has always been a key element of Detroit's decline and it is evident by reviewing this site. Signed Darryl Shirley. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darrylshirley (talk • contribs) 22:40, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Coleman A. Young was a racist. He is the reason why the Detroit economy is still struggling, why come back to the city when you were not welcomed before by a man who ran the city??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.42.150.55 (talk) 05:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Still Struggling? You mean dead, don't you? Prior to his tenure as mayor, Detroit was a thriving beautiful city, now look at it. The results of his administration stand alone. Yes, he was an open rascist and his encouragement toward his own race led to the open crime and highest unemployment in the nation. Bugguyak (talk) 16:35, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Well I'm a registered user (and from Detroit) and I agree that this article neglects to mention the possible negative aspects of Young's tenure as mayor. He played a substantial role in the "White Flight" (rather intentional or not). Ask a black Detroiter and he'll usually tell you he was the best mayor of the city--ask a white one the same queston, and more than likely tell you that he was amongst the worst. And by the way Carptrash, there is no need to be so unkind to our non-registered users. Everyone has the right to have an opinion, and he's/she's certainly not unfounded.--NewChampion (talk) 18:04, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Take heart for those of you (racists in SE Mich) trying to blame Mayor Young for Detroit's decline - racism is alive and well in Detroit. Some of you don't know (absolutely IGNORANT OF FACTS) that in 1968 and 1972 George Wallace (Independent Candidate for President) visited and was RECEIVED by large white Detroit area crowds as he spoke at Cobo Hall in downtown Detroit. Detorit is a victim of deindustrialization, white and capital flight, and above all RACISM. Here is an excerpt from the book "THE ORIGINS OF THE URBAN CRISIS: Race and Inequlity in Postwar Detroit"//Author: Thomas J Sugure. Excerpt on page 270, 2nd Paragraph, starting at the 3rd sentence - sums up history fairly well:"The image of of a largely black and very poor city surrounded by a ring of affluent white suburbs gives resonance to images of Detroit as a center of American apartheid. What has become of Detroit, however, is not the product of post-riot panic or the alleged misrule of Coleman Young.  By the time Young was inaugurated (circa 1974), the forces of economic decay and racial animosity were far to powerful for a single elected official to stem."//signed Darryl Shirley  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darrylshirley (talk • contribs) 01:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

12th street riots
Would a mention of the "12th street riots" in Detroit of July 1967 be appropriate here? I believe they helped prepare the ground for his eventual election.

Here's the wiki link;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_Street_Riot

- Meltingpot

Meltingpot 20:28, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Mayor Young was a state senator during the '67 Insurrection. It would have only indirectly touched on his responsibilities. It of course would more properly be referenced in an article about Detroit, or one about the then Mayor, Jerome Cavanagh although if any sourced material about Young's reactions at the time might be proper to the article. Edivorce (talk) 02:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Worst article on wiki
Somebody really needs to clean this thing up. This thing is unsourced, wildly biased and worst of all, wildly racist. This is absolutely the worst article I have ever seen in wikipedia. Just to give one example of a paragraph that should be completely deleted is this:

" Young's administration was historic in terms of Black power, and therefore controversial with the white power structure. He found himself the subject of continued FBI harassment, really stemming from his being Black and his earlier days as a radical activist. This included all kinds of allegations, but charges were never brought against him. It is generally agreed that since the government had closely scrutinized him throughout, that if he had actually broken the law, charges would have been brought, and that therefore Young was clean. He was criticized by the coroporate news media excessively, but always very popular with the People of Detroit. His "Black Bottom Detroit" style (see quotations of Young, below) endeared him to his People profoundly. His autobiography ,_Hardstuff_, is a record of the history of Black Detroit in his lifetime. The suburbs of Detroit made him the target of their alienation from a Detroit that had become overwhelmingly Black majority due to "white flight". "

"White power structure"? The FBI only investigated him because he was black? That whole "Young was clean" sentence? White people all left the city because they couldn't deal with a black mayor?? If somebody can find me a more racist paragraph (or at least one with worse grammar) on wiki I'll buy them lunch.

After looking at the editing history, it appears that the article was basically rewritten by somebody with the IP address 69.215.26.194 (a Detroit IP address), who added his/her opinion into every paragraph. If I had to guess, it was done by a racist with connections to Young, because the opinions put into every paragraph basically boil down to "All criticism of Young was invalid because it came from white people and all white people are racists." I deleted that one truly atrocious paragraph, but this whole article needs to be cleaned up. All of the edits by 69.215.26.194 should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.104.165.109 (talk) 15:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Possible additions (mostly Criticism)
I don't know if it's 'the worst' article on wiki, but it's definitely not NPOV. I looked up this page after reading an article in TIME magazine (which I personally consider a reasonable source of information). Some quotes from the Oct 5 2009 TIME magazine, pp. 29-34. Some of those might be worth including, as a criticism perhaps:


 * "Suburbanization turned Detroit into a majority-African-American city, and its first black mayor spent his 20-year tenure playing the politics of retribution."


 * "Coleman Young was a talented politician who spent much of his 20 years in office devoting his talents to the politics of revenge."


 * "During Young's reign and for many years thereafter, the possibility of city-suburban cooperation - which is to say black-white cooperation - was close to nil."

Any comments, and preferably an input from someone who knows much more about this person, would be good.

SWojczyszyn (talk) 07:15, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

and here's a link to the article http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1925796,00.html, available on time.com. I think we should definitely try to balance out the fluff with an actual account of how Young (mis)ruled Detroit and how his policies worsened race relations in the city. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.67.46.27 (talk) 15:51, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not expert on the city of Detroit or Coleman Young, but I read the article on TIME as well. If he was apparently such a good mayor as portrayed in this article, then why is Detroit so economically depressed today when its economy was doing well before he became mayor? Gryffindor (talk) 16:28, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I too read the article in Time, and found the viewpoint of this article to be entirely in opposition to the opinions voiced in Time. However, I don't know anything about Detroit.
 * Are there any objective experts on Young out there who willing to give this article a rework?WasAPasserBy (talk) 23:09, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I spotted via the DetroitYes forum those videos exterpted from ABC Primetime Live broadcasted originally in November 1990 who was controversial; part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbsgLcV4o1k part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvTvLk2zySw --Sd-100 (talk) 15:33, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Reverted to August 11th version
I've reverted this article back to the August 11th 2009 version. The date sets back to a time before an IP editor came on here and made massive POV changes to the article which made it completely unworkable. The assessment section is also filled with POV and I may remove large segments of it.--Jersey Devil (talk) 05:12, 28 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks like the IP is back. Discuss here please.--Jersey Devil (talk) 14:01, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

(moved discussion with IP to this talk page) My editing has been corrective and constructive, not disruptive. Your current article is filled with the biases of the slanderous haters of Coleman Young who dogged him much of his life.

Constructive additions I made: I added the fact that Coleman Young wrote an autobiography, _Hard Stuff_. Your article didn't have that Do you deny that Coleman Young was a follower of the great African-American philosopher and political leader W.E.B. Dubois ? Young said so himself in his autobiography, _Hard Stuff_. Do you deny he was an associate of Paul Robeson ? He said he was himself. Certainly, these and other contacts are both true and important in giving a full picture of Young's life, and demonstrating the connections between great figures in African-American history.

Many of the characterizations of Young during his Mayorality are as if written by the racist suburbanites who lied about him while in office. I rewrote those sections in a way that I am sure Young would approve. Who are you to claim that the other point of view was correct ? Did you live in Detroit during Young's tenure ? I did. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.215.26.194 (talk)


 * Thanks for responding. I think you might just not understand what the purpose of Wikipedia is. This is suppose to be an online encyclopedia and articles are suppose to be written from a neutral perspective (see WP:Neutrality). Your edits were largely uncited and written with a clear point-of-view (see WP:POV). When your edits were removed for these reasons you continued to edit war despite being asked to discuss the reversions. When this happened it crossed the lines from a content dispute to an issue of disruption and I had no other option but to temporarily block you (the only way to get you to stop and talk about the edits). I also want to tell you that while your personal experience with Mayor Young might be valuable you still must cite sources if you are going to make assertions in the article (see our policy on original research). I have no personal opinion about the subject of the article the only issue I have is that (1) the article must be written in an objective and factual manner (rather than the POV manner it was written in before) and (2) edit warring must stop.--Jersey Devil (talk) 00:06, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

NPOV tag
this article has had NPOV tag for 2 years. I saw it on the backlog list and edited it some today to try to weed out any obvious NPOV questions. Maybe with some continuing attention and careful edits we can clear up the NPOV to an acceptable degree. --Mdukas (talk) 16:54, 5 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Tag is still right, tho. There's a lot of spin in the article still. It's entirely written from a pro-Young point of view, and some of it reads a bit like apologia: ("yes, the city went down the shithole while he was in power, but it was someone else's fault").  It needs stuff adding from the other side, for balance, I suggest.  95.147.142.206 (talk) 17:28, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

This is my first stab ever at editing wikipedia page. In the corruption section, I deleted --- "Critics of the mayor point to Young's relationship with President Carter and it has been suggested that Carter discouraged the Justice Department from aggressively pursuing any indictments against Young." --- because none of the citations backs this up and it is just plain silly. How on earth could Jimmy Carter protect Coleman Young from the Reagan & Bush Justice Departments? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lance Friedman (talk • contribs) 12:36, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Tuskegee Airmen
Could someone please confirm whether Coleman Young was ever in combat or flew any combat missions with the Tuskegee Airmen? Or, did he just stay stateside? What exactly did he do with the Tuskegee Airmen? 216.151.31.18 (talk) 12:11, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

As a member myself of the Tuskegee Airmen national association, I can tell you that Young was a member of a twin-engine medium bomber squadron (B-25s) that was indeed fully staffed and flown by Tuskegee Airmen. Yet unlike the single-engine fighter pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group, the 477th Medium bomber Group never went into action, never left the continental U. S. Not their fault, the Army Air Force was happy to keep them out of combat, out of the public eye. The 477th was supposed to participate in the final stages of the war in the Pacific, but they were kept in training Stateside, and out of combat, long enough that the war ended before they had a chance to participate. All of this can easily be confirmed by a basic Internet search.173.62.25.244 (talk) 03:27, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

NPOV
The pre-mayoral section contains a prolific amount of red baiting. Instead of several paragraphs of "COMMIE COMMIE COMMIE COMMIE" could we have some information with a bit more substance? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:4:4180:EB:9574:2217:7:DD24 (talk) 21:29, 30 March 2014 (UTC)


 * nonsense. all the biographers emphasize his close working with the far Left at that early stage. That's what originally built his career. Once in office he changed & worked with the business community.  Rjensen (talk) 21:37, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Very not NPOV.
Speaking as a white man living in a privileged white suburb, it even looks to me like this article has plenty of racial prejudice against black African-American Coleman Young. The Talk history, and of course the text in the article itself strongly indicate some right-wing persons have consciously made this article a target for character assassination, and an even higher priority has been to assassinate the character of political thinking that is not like their own. I have never, in well over a decade of using and sometimes editing the Wikipedia, posted about any article to say it is the target of a long-term agenda to turn it into propaganda. Until now. I don't know if the people blaming Young for driving white people out of Detroit, or calling the UAW a radical organization, or accusing him of being a secret Communist Party USA member actually believe those things or are more interested in manipulating the opinions of others than in truth, accuracy, and maintaining a legitimate reference work for use by all. The many mentions of racism in this article cite racism against whites. In Detroit. In the 1960s and 1970s! Seriously? Racial bias against whites is the main race issue in Detroit for all those years? These "contributions" to this article leave me flabbergasted. A word I never thought I would need. I am much too seriously ill to undertake a decent review of facts and sources, then writing plain spoken, Neutral Point of View text that properly touches on all issues relevant to a Coleman Young biographical, encyclopedic article. I would dearly love to be a part of positive change, but I am too physically ill for it. Please, someone who is able to recognize the bias and even apparent propaganda in this article, take the job in hand. Preferably a professional historian with no axes to grind. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a battlefield where CPAC launches yet another offensive in the culture wars. Please forgive me if I said too much. I am - flabbergasted and it is showing. 96.231.199.129 (talk) 04:06, 31 July 2014 (UTC) “Speaking as a white man living in a privileged white suburb, it even looks to me like this article has plenty of racial prejudice against black African-American Coleman Young. The Talk history, and of course the text in the article itself strongly indicate some right-wing persons have consciously made this article a target for character assassination, and an even higher priority has been to assassinate the character of political thinking that is not like their own.”


 * Project much?
 * Where “King” Coleman Young is concerned, it is impossible to engage in “character assassination.” 2604:2000:9046:800:B11B:974:9A80:D6CD (talk) 06:08, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070607165027/http://www.cayf.org/colemanyoung.html to http://www.cayf.org/colemanyoung.html

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External links modified
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I have just modified one external link on Coleman Young. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071017031444/http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/elephant/young.htm to http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/elephant/young.htm

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Tuskegee Airman?
He's not listed as a Tuskegee Airman pilot: so was he an airman? Mztourist (talk) 09:39, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Provided his noted aircrew training can be verified he would qualify as a Tuskegee Airman under the NPS/AFHRA definition of the term since he was trained under the Tuskegee program and assigned to a segregated unit. But he would not be one of the "Red Tail" members as he wasn't a fighter pilot (or indeed a pilot at all). Intothatdarkness 20:08, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Kurregrats?
Nothing about him having the South African currency? 174.247.209.167 (talk) 20:06, 1 December 2022 (UTC)