Abutting heavily black Detroit, the predominantly white suburb of Dearborn has earned an unsavory reputation as one of America’s more segregated communities. Conditions have not changed appreciably since the 1980 census showed only 83 blacks among Dearborn’s 90,660 residents. The city’s lily-white makeup was maintained by Mayor Orville Hubbard, a chest-thumping racist who ruled Dearborn’s city hall from 1942 to 1978. Although Hubbard died in 1982, his legacy was hauntingly present last week as civil rights activists expanded a boycott of local stores to protest efforts to bar nonresidents from most of Dearborn’s 39 parks.
At issue was an ordinance, passed by referendum last November, that threatens nonresidents who invade the parks with fines of up to $500 or jail sentences of up to 90 days. Dearborn residents said they were forced into acting because they were being crowded out of recreation facilities they pay for. Said William Peretto, 39, whose son Scott could not get into a municipal swimming pool last summer because it was mobbed: “We had to do something.”
Quickly, though, the ordinance served to spotlight the area’s long-standing racial divide. Civil rights leaders saw it as a clumsy move to keep out blacks from Detroit. In retaliation, the N.A.A.C.P. organized a boycott of Dearborn’s stores, including those at Fairlane Town Center, a 2,360-acre complex that includes the state’s largest shopping mall. Before the boycott, an estimated 28% of Fairlane’s shoppers were black. Says the Rev. Charles Adams, minister of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church and head of the Detroit N.A.A.C.P.: “They welcome us to shop in their stores, but don’t allow us to stop in their parks. If we’re not good enough to stop, we feel we’re too good to shop.”
By last week the dispute over the parks ordinance had expanded into a more general grievance over the dearth of commercial facilities in Detroit. During the past decade the city has lost most of its famous retailers, and black leaders hope a boycott will pressure merchants to provide convenient outlets for the city’s thousands of black customers. The N.A.A.C.P.’s Adams urged Detroiters to use the Lenten season to abstain from shopping at all stores in the suburbs, not just the ones in Dearborn. “Don’t shop anywhere but in Detroit,” he told his congregation. “If you can’t find it here, do without it.”
The call for Detroit-only shopping is expected to have limited success, even among blacks who have been insulted by Dearborn’s racial attitudes. Fred Morgan, 39, a Detroit truck driver, long ago dropped the idea of buying a house in Dearborn, in part because he felt unwelcome. But he still will shop there. “I was out last night looking for an air compressor,” he said. “Where am I going to get one in Detroit for the kind of price I can find in the suburbs?”
Nevertheless, the boycott is an embarrassment for the city that is home to the Ford Motor Co., the fourth-largest corporation in the U.S. and one praised for its vigorous hiring and promotion of black rank-and-file workers and executives, including many who commute to Dearborn daily. The campaign has received some visible support from the Detroit police department, which pulled out of a crime-prevention convention last week because it was held in Dearborn. Several other organizations, including an education group and a black sorority, have canceled or are considering calling off events in Dearborn.
The N.A.A.C.P. and the American Civil Liberties Union have also filed suit in Wayne County Circuit Court, arguing that the parks ordinance is illegal. In Dearborn, however, these pressures have only hardened local resistance. Dearborn’s new mayor, Michael Guido, who initially opposed the ordinance, now says the city will fight opponents in court.
Until now the ordinance has not been enforced, since winter weather has kept most people from the parks. But one community leader in the dispute says black Detroiters may stage sit-ins and confrontations in Dearborn if the matter is not resolved before spring. “We’re struggling to head off a potentially explosive situation,” he said, and time is running out.
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