Story at a glance
- The town of Dearborn, Michigan, removed its statue of former Mayor Orville Hubbard.
- Hubbard has a divisive history as a racist figure who supported segregation.
The city of Dearborn, Mich., has removed a divisive statue of former mayor Orville Hubbard (R), who was known for his racist views, according to civil rights advocates and city officials as reported by the Detroit Free Press.
Holding office from 1942 to 1978, Hubbard used his time as the city’s longest-serving mayor to push Dearborn to exclude black residents. He also used racial slurs and said mixing races leads to the downfall of civilizations, according to the Detroit Free Press. Hubbard made derogatory remarks about African Americans, Arab Americans, Polish Americans, Italians, Irish Catholics, Jews and others.
The Detroit Metro Times reports that Hubbard was one of the most outspoken segregationists this side of the Mason-Dixon Line.
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Dearborn spokeswoman Mary Laundroche addressed the removal in a statement, saying, “The statue had been a divisive symbol rather than a unifying one. The fact that the Hubbard family was able to move it out of Dearborn now — something they had wanted to do since 2015, when the statue was removed from the former City Hall campus — is a positive development for our community. It will allow our message to be better heard that Dearborn is committed to being a welcoming place for people of goodwill from all backgrounds.”
The statue is privately owned by the Hubbard family, who will reportedly move it to Hubbard’s gravesite. Previously, the statue was located at the town’s City Hall and Dearborn Historical Museum.
It was removed from the Dearborn Historical Museum in 2015, and had stints in other locations before being permanently removed.
Last week, a Black Lives Matter T-shirt was placed on the Hubbard statue as protests against institutional racism continue to sweep the nation and world.
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Dearborn is one of many cities around the world removing statues of problematic leaders in light of the protests and the growing attention on municipalities’ history of racism.
Dallas removed a controversial Texas Ranger statue from an airport ahead of a new book which details the disturbing past of the famed law enforcement group. In Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam (D) confirmed the monument erected to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee will be removed.
In Bristol, England, a statue of a noted slave trader Edward Colston was toppled into the Avon river by protesters.
The removal of these monuments comes as Black Lives Matter protests demand justice for the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, who were killed by police, and call for systemic changes to address racism.
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