Read Online Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie Leduff - Free Book Online
Authors: Charlie Leduff
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honed for a decade at the
Times
. “I’ll tell you what’s in it for him. If he
doesn’t
give me an interview, I’ll kick his ass every day up and down Woodward. That’s what’s in it for him.”
Canning looked sour, like I’d just pissed in his coffee cup.
“Where’d you come from?” he asked. “New York, right?”
“Yeah. New York.”
He nodded, then scribbled a name and number on a busi-ness card. “Here, call the reverend. He can speak on the mayor’s behalf.”
I looked at the card:
Rev. Horace Sheffield
. I put the card in my pocket.
“And lunch?”
“I’ll ask.”
“Tell him I’ll pay.”
* * *
Reverend Sheffield had a community center on the far west side of town, walled off from the ghetto he served by a pike fence and an electronic gate. The son of a UAW icon, Sheffield operated in part on public contracts and grants from city hall. Since the feds were crawling up Kilpatrick’s ass, that spigot of money had dried up. When I later called him, he complained to me that his cell phone had been shut off and he was in danger of missing his mortgage payment.
His center was drab and ill lighted and as I walked in toward the reception desk, I stopped and looked at the classroom where a half dozen kids were slouched in chairs, doodling or groping one another. According to the signage, this was the life skills program for at-risk youth, ostensibly where that money from city hall went.
I signed in at the desk.
“The reverend is on a telephone conference,” the attendant told me, and I took a long, cold seat.
I studied the civil rights photographs on the wall—the well-dressed black men at the union rallies and dinner banquets—and I realized how little I knew about the history of Detroit, its race and labor record, the rough-and-tumble machinations of Detroit black—and for that matter, white—power. I was wearing a tie, but I had neglected to shave and I noticed a small hole in the knee of my blue jeans.
I really had no specific questions for Sheffield, because I knew nothing insightful to ask. I simply wanted to stare big-city politics in the face, study the knickknacks and doodles on its desk.
Then power walked in the door: a short, stocky, smooth-skulled black man wearing a full-length leather trench coat accompanied by a tall, large, well-dressed sidekick. I had them pegged for members of the Nation of Islam.
The bald man in the trench coat gave his name to the receptionist: Adolph Mongo.
I may not have known much around town, but I knew
that
name. Adolph Mongo. You couldn’t avoid it in Detroit. Mongo’s technical title was consultant. But he had other names: the political hit man, bomb thrower, assassin. These were titles of prestige.
Mongo cut his teeth in the Coleman Young administration in the early eighties, working as a deputy director of communications. A former marine and itinerant newspaperman, Mongo came from a family that was powerful in the black underworld of Detroit’s heyday. According to him and his brothers, Mongo’s uncle was a bootlegger and numbers runner, his great-auntie the madam of a brothel. Mongo’s dead older brother moved heroin and cocaine. So naturally when Young took control of the city, the Mongo clan insinuated itself into a place at the table.
Mongo’s older brother Larry became something of a consigliere to Young, and so when Adolph came knocking, Young put him to work, and his experience in the Young machine taught him that Detroit politics was an insular and imperious world.
Once, Robert Mugabe, the African revolutionary who would later become president of Zimbabwe, came to Detroit to receive the keys to the city. Mayor Young made him wait an inordinately long time for an audience.
Mongo remembers it this way: an underling stepped into Young’s office and said, “Sir, you’ve got Robert Mugabe, the freedom fighter, sitting out there.”
To which Young replied: “Fuck Robert Mugabe. This is Detroit.”
Detroit indeed. We once
Times
. “I’ll tell you what’s in it for him. If he
doesn’t
give me an interview, I’ll kick his ass every day up and down Woodward. That’s what’s in it for him.”
Canning looked sour, like I’d just pissed in his coffee cup.
“Where’d you come from?” he asked. “New York, right?”
“Yeah. New York.”
He nodded, then scribbled a name and number on a busi-ness card. “Here, call the reverend. He can speak on the mayor’s behalf.”
I looked at the card:
Rev. Horace Sheffield
. I put the card in my pocket.
“And lunch?”
“I’ll ask.”
“Tell him I’ll pay.”
* * *
Reverend Sheffield had a community center on the far west side of town, walled off from the ghetto he served by a pike fence and an electronic gate. The son of a UAW icon, Sheffield operated in part on public contracts and grants from city hall. Since the feds were crawling up Kilpatrick’s ass, that spigot of money had dried up. When I later called him, he complained to me that his cell phone had been shut off and he was in danger of missing his mortgage payment.
His center was drab and ill lighted and as I walked in toward the reception desk, I stopped and looked at the classroom where a half dozen kids were slouched in chairs, doodling or groping one another. According to the signage, this was the life skills program for at-risk youth, ostensibly where that money from city hall went.
I signed in at the desk.
“The reverend is on a telephone conference,” the attendant told me, and I took a long, cold seat.
I studied the civil rights photographs on the wall—the well-dressed black men at the union rallies and dinner banquets—and I realized how little I knew about the history of Detroit, its race and labor record, the rough-and-tumble machinations of Detroit black—and for that matter, white—power. I was wearing a tie, but I had neglected to shave and I noticed a small hole in the knee of my blue jeans.
I really had no specific questions for Sheffield, because I knew nothing insightful to ask. I simply wanted to stare big-city politics in the face, study the knickknacks and doodles on its desk.
Then power walked in the door: a short, stocky, smooth-skulled black man wearing a full-length leather trench coat accompanied by a tall, large, well-dressed sidekick. I had them pegged for members of the Nation of Islam.
The bald man in the trench coat gave his name to the receptionist: Adolph Mongo.
I may not have known much around town, but I knew
that
name. Adolph Mongo. You couldn’t avoid it in Detroit. Mongo’s technical title was consultant. But he had other names: the political hit man, bomb thrower, assassin. These were titles of prestige.
Mongo cut his teeth in the Coleman Young administration in the early eighties, working as a deputy director of communications. A former marine and itinerant newspaperman, Mongo came from a family that was powerful in the black underworld of Detroit’s heyday. According to him and his brothers, Mongo’s uncle was a bootlegger and numbers runner, his great-auntie the madam of a brothel. Mongo’s dead older brother moved heroin and cocaine. So naturally when Young took control of the city, the Mongo clan insinuated itself into a place at the table.
Mongo’s older brother Larry became something of a consigliere to Young, and so when Adolph came knocking, Young put him to work, and his experience in the Young machine taught him that Detroit politics was an insular and imperious world.
Once, Robert Mugabe, the African revolutionary who would later become president of Zimbabwe, came to Detroit to receive the keys to the city. Mayor Young made him wait an inordinately long time for an audience.
Mongo remembers it this way: an underling stepped into Young’s office and said, “Sir, you’ve got Robert Mugabe, the freedom fighter, sitting out there.”
To which Young replied: “Fuck Robert Mugabe. This is Detroit.”
Detroit indeed. We once
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