Statue Of Orville Hubbard Restored, Standing Again In Dearborn

DEARBORN, MI — After more than a year in storage, the statue of former Dearborn Mayor Orville Hubbard is standing again. The restored, 10-foot bronze statue of the city’s longest-serving mayor was placed at the Dearborn Historical Museum Friday.

The statue — a symbol of racism for many — did not move to the city’s new administrative center when operations went west from the corner of Michigan Avenue and Schaefer Road to across from the Ford Motor Company’s world headquarters on Michigan near Southfield Road.

City leaders felt the statue was more appropriate for the museum, which is located at Garrison and Brady streets. Dearborn Historical Museum Chief Curator Jack Tate said Hubbard is a part of the city’s history, like it or not.

“For his time, he understood his constituents and he did everything he could to support them and make them happy,” Tate told the Detroit Free Press.

Some think the statue should have stayed in storage.

“Orville Hubbard should have his name mentioned in Dearborn history, but as a straight-out racist,” Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Detroit Free Press. “There’s no difference between Orville Hubbard” and “the segregationist mayors in the south of the Jim Crow era.”

Hubbard, who served from as mayor for 36 years from 1942-1978, was well known for segregationist views and racially charged remarks. The Free Press reported that In 1969, Hubbard told the New York Times whites shouldn’t have to live with blacks: “I don’t hate (n-word). Christ, I don’t even dislike them. But if whites don’t want to live with (racial epithet), they sure as hell don’t have to. Dammit, this is a free country. This is America.”

In 2015, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Michigan Executive Director Fatina Abdrabboh said in a letter to Dearborn city council, the statue should stay permanently retired.

“It is clear that the prejudice practiced by Hubbard continues to have modern day ramifications,” she wrote. “We have a duty to our community to remove this symbol of past oppression and work on paving the way towards a more just future.”

Still, some remember Hubbard for the level of service he provided to Dearborn residents. He demanded top-notch customer service from city employees, to the point where both he and workers shoveled snow for residents by hand.

After being dismantled in the fall of 2015, the state underwent a $7,000 restoration, the Detroit Free Press reported. That included $4,200 worth of work at the Venus Bronze Works in Detroit and $2,800 from Dearborn’s Department of Public Works for a new pedestal.

Photo by Scott Daniel (Patch Staff) Beth Dalbey (Patch Staff) contributed to this report