GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Outgoing state Sen. Adam Hollier is working to get one more big project done before he wraps up his tenure in Lansing and it appears he will get his way.
Hollier, D-Detroit, has led the push to replace a statue of Lewis Cass at the U.S. Capitol with one to honor Coleman Young, Detroit’s first Black mayor.
According to a report from The Detroit News, Hollier has support from several leading Republicans who want to bring the resolution to the House floor during the Legislature’s upcoming lame-duck schedule.
The resolution, which was introduced by several leading Democrats in February, passed the state Senate in June.
“If anything, it is a good opportunity for some bipartisanship and to something that just makes sense,” Hollier told The Detroit News.
Federal law allows every state to donate two statues to the National Statuary Hall Collection at the U.S Capitol. The marble statue of Cass was donated in 1889. Past custom has allowed Republicans and Democrats to each choose one representative. The last time state lawmakers voted to make a change was in 2011, when a Republican-led push replaced a statue of former U.S. Senator and Detroit Mayor Zachariah Chandler with one of former President Gerald R. Ford.
Cass has long been a controversial character in Michigan history. After commanding a unit in the War of 1812, Cass was appointed the governor of the Michigan Territory by President James Madison. He served in that role until 1831, when President Andrew Jackson named him the nation’s secretary of war, helping Jackson implement his Indian removal policy, forcing more than 100,000 Native Americans off of their ancestral land.
According to Hollier, Young is a far better representation of Michigan values.
“He was somebody who spent his entire career fighting for freedom, fighting for people and fighting for his constituents,” Hollier told WKAR-FM earlier this year.
Young flew with the Tuskegee airmen during World War II before representing Detroit in the state Senate for eight years. Young was voted in as the mayor of Detroit in 1974 and went on to hold the office for 20 years.