Young, Coleman A. (Coleman Alexander), 1918-1997

Coleman Alexander Young (May 24, 1918 – November 29, 1997) was an American labor leader, union organizer, and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as mayor of Detroit, Michigan from 1974 to 1994. Young was the first African-American mayor of Detroit.

Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, his family moved in 1923 to Detroit, as part of the Great Migration out of the South to industrial cities that offered more opportunity. There, Young graduated from Eastern High School in 1935. Though offered a scholarship to the University of Michigan, he was forced to decline when the Eastern High School Alumni Association failed to arrange a job that would assist him with his costs beyond tuition. Upon his graduation from Eastern, he joined an apprentice school for electricians through Ford Motor Company. However a less qualified white apprentice was given the available electrician’s position so Young was assigned to Ford’s assembly line and quickly became involved in underground labor activities. After several run-ins with company management, Young was fired. In 1942, Young joined the U.S. Army, where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. Returning to Detroit after the war, Young became a union activist for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) until being fired for radical behavior. Young then worked full-time for progressive presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace, losing his 1948 bid for the State Senate as a member of Wallace's Progressive Party.

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