Jerome Cavanagh
Encyclopedia
Jerome Patrick Cavanagh was the mayor
of Detroit, Michigan
from 1962 to 1970. Initially seen as another John F. Kennedy
, his reputation was doomed by the 1967 riots
. He was the first mayor to inhabit the Manoogian Mansion
, donated to the city by the industrial baron Alex Manoogian
.
. He attended the University of Detroit, earning an undergraduate degree in 1950 and a law degree in 1954, and practiced law in Detorit after graduation. He was active in Democratic Party
politics while attending school, and afterward served in low-level appointed positions as an administrative assistant at the Michigan State Fair
Authority and as a member of the Metropolitan Airport Board of Zoning Appeals.
. None of these candidates was seen as serious opposition to Miriani, who had an enormous amount of institutional support and had easily won the mayoral race four years earlier. Cavanagh ran second to Miriani in the primary, earning a slot in the general election, but received less than half the primary votes Miriani did. However, Cavanagh campaigned relentlessly, criticizing Miriani's handling of Detroit's financial affairs and race relations with the city's African-American community. And indeed, many in the black community believed Miriani condoned police brutality. On election day, black voters turned out in force, and Cavanagh stunned political observers by defeating incumbent Miriani.
Cavanagh got off to a popular start as mayor, appointing a reformer to be chief of police
and implementing an affirmative action
program for most city agencies. Unlike Richard J. Daley
, who resisted forced implementation of the American civil rights movement, Jerry Cavanagh welcomed Martin Luther King, Jr.
to Detroit, and marched with him in June 1963 down Woodward Avenue in the 100,000 strong March for Freedom.
Cavanagh was successful in prying money from Washington, DC through the Model Cities Program
. New skyscraper
s were built downtown. Well-informed observers believed that Detroit had extinguished the embers of resentment left over from the 1943 Detroit Race Riot
.
For example, Fortune magazine commented:
Nor was Detroit doing so badly economically. The National Observer commented:
In the face of this optimism, Cavanaugh was re-elected overwhelmingly in 1965. In 1966, Cavanagh was elected president of both the United States Conference of Mayors
and the National League of Cities
, the only mayor to hold both posts at the same time.
After World War II
, the automobile
industry, requiring more lateral space than was available in a city, and desiring to avoid city taxes, decentralized its operations. As with other cities, Detroiters were leaving Detroit for its suburbs by the thousands by 1967. Some 22,000 residents, mostly white, moved to the suburbs in 1966 alone, following new auto plants and new housing, or using the newly constructed Interstate system to commute into Detroit.
Detroit, which was not a large financial, entertainment, educational, or government center, was a city in serious trouble. Cavanagh had inherited a $28 million budget gap in 1962. To close the gap, and to pay for the new programs he wanted to implement, Cavanagh had pushed through the legislature income
and commuter tax
es for Detroit, thereby further driving out businesses and middle class residents.
On July 23, 1967, a police attempt to break up an illegal party escalated into what would be known as the 12th Street Riot
. Feeling a large police presence would make things worse, Cavanagh acted slowly to stop the riots. They lasted for five days, killed 43 people, made over 5,000 people homeless, and required two divisions of federal paratroopers to be put down; they were the worst of the four hundred or so riots that American cities experienced in the 1960s. Cavanagh himself had to admit in July 1967, "Today we stand amidst the ashes of our hopes. We hoped against hope that what we had been doing was enough to prevent a riot. It was not enough."
Cavanaugh was severely criticized for his handling on the riots, and his last two years in office were difficult. He declined to run for re-election in 1969.
in 1966 but lost in the Democratic primary to former governor G. Mennen Williams
. In July 1967, Cavanaugh's wife Mary Helen filed for separation, and the couple split the custody of their eight children. In October, Cavanaugh counter-sued, and in 1968 the couple went through an embarrassing public divorce trial.
After Cavanaugh left office, he returned to his private law practice in Detroit and taught law at the University of Michigan
. In 1974, Cavanagh again ran for office, this time for Governor, but lost in the primary election to Democrat Sander Levin, who later lost in the general election to Republican William Milliken
. It was Cavanagh's last attempt at political office.
Jerry Cavanagh died of a heart attack
on November 27, 1979 at St. Joseph Hospital on Harrodsburg Road in Lexington, Kentucky
. He is buried in Mt. Elliott Cemetery in Detroit.
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
of Detroit, Michigan
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
from 1962 to 1970. Initially seen as another John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, his reputation was doomed by the 1967 riots
12th Street riot
The 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street riot, was a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan, that began in the early morning hours of Sunday, July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig, on the corner of 12th and...
. He was the first mayor to inhabit the Manoogian Mansion
Manoogian Mansion
The Manoogian Mansion is the official residence of the mayor of Detroit, Michigan. It is located at 9240 Dwight Street in the Berry Subdivision Historic District, on the city's east side, backing up to the Detroit River. It was built in 1928 for $300,000, but the owner lost the home during the...
, donated to the city by the industrial baron Alex Manoogian
Alex Manoogian
Alexander "Alex" Manoogian was an Armenian-American industrial engineer, businessman, entrepreneur and philanthropist who had most of his career in Detroit, Michigan. He and his wife Marie donated their home to the city, which uses the Manoogian Mansion as the mayoral residence...
.
Early life
Jerome P. Cavanagh was born on June 16, 1928, the son of a boilermaker at Ford Motor CompanyFord Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
. He attended the University of Detroit, earning an undergraduate degree in 1950 and a law degree in 1954, and practiced law in Detorit after graduation. He was active in Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
politics while attending school, and afterward served in low-level appointed positions as an administrative assistant at the Michigan State Fair
Michigan State Fair
-History:The first official Michigan State Fair was held in 1849, which is claimed by the state of Michigan to be the oldest state fair in the United States. The first fair was held in Detroit, Michigan. Subsequent fairs were held in other cities until it received its permanent home in 1905 at the...
Authority and as a member of the Metropolitan Airport Board of Zoning Appeals.
Mayoral campaign
In his first campaign ever, the 33 year old Cavanagh entered the 1961 Detroit mayoral race, one of eleven candidates in the nonpartisan primary opposing incumbent Louis MirianiLouis Miriani
Louis C. Miriani was a former mayor and member of the City Council of Detroit, Michigan. He was the last Republican mayor of Detroit to date.-Biography:...
. None of these candidates was seen as serious opposition to Miriani, who had an enormous amount of institutional support and had easily won the mayoral race four years earlier. Cavanagh ran second to Miriani in the primary, earning a slot in the general election, but received less than half the primary votes Miriani did. However, Cavanagh campaigned relentlessly, criticizing Miriani's handling of Detroit's financial affairs and race relations with the city's African-American community. And indeed, many in the black community believed Miriani condoned police brutality. On election day, black voters turned out in force, and Cavanagh stunned political observers by defeating incumbent Miriani.
Cavanagh got off to a popular start as mayor, appointing a reformer to be chief of police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
and implementing an affirmative action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
program for most city agencies. Unlike Richard J. Daley
Richard J. Daley
Richard Joseph Daley served for 21 years as the mayor and undisputed Democratic boss of Chicago and is considered by historians to be the "last of the big city bosses." He played a major role in the history of the Democratic Party, especially with his support of John F...
, who resisted forced implementation of the American civil rights movement, Jerry Cavanagh welcomed Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
to Detroit, and marched with him in June 1963 down Woodward Avenue in the 100,000 strong March for Freedom.
Cavanagh was successful in prying money from Washington, DC through the Model Cities Program
Model Cities Program
The Model Cities Program was an element of United States President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty. The ambitious federal urban aid program ultimately fell short of its goals....
. New skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
s were built downtown. Well-informed observers believed that Detroit had extinguished the embers of resentment left over from the 1943 Detroit Race Riot
Detroit Race Riot (1943)
The Detroit Race Riot broke out in Detroit, Michigan in June 1943 and lasted for three days before Federal troops restored order. The rioting between blacks and whites began on Belle Isle on 20 June 1943 and continued until 22 June, killing 34, wounding 433, and destroying property valued at $2...
.
For example, Fortune magazine commented:
- "the most significant is the progress Detroit has made in race relations. The grim specter of the 1943 riots never quite fades from the minds of city leaders. As much as anything else, that specter has enabled the power structure to overcome tenacious prejudice and give the Negro community a role in the consensus probably unparalleled in any major American city.
- "Negroes in Detroit have deep roots in the community, compared with the more transient population of Negro ghettos in HarlemHarlemHarlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
and elsewhere in the North. ... more than 40% of the negro population own their own houses.
Nor was Detroit doing so badly economically. The National Observer commented:
- "The evidence, both statistical and visual, is everywhere. Retail sales are up dramatically. Earnings are higher. Unemployment is lower. People are putting new aluminum sidings on their homes, new carpets on the floor, new cars in the garage.
- "Some people are forsaking the suburbs and returning to the city. Physically Detroit has acquired freshness and vitality. Acres of slums have been razed, and steel and glass apartments, angular and lonely in the vacated landscape, have sprung up in their place. In the central business district, hard by the Detroit River, severely rectangular skyscrapers—none more than 5 years old—jostle uncomfortably with the gilded behemoths of another age.
- "Accustomed to years of adversity, to decades of drabness and civil immobility, Detroiters are naturally exhilarated. They note with particular pride that Detroit has been removed from the Federal Bureau of Employment Security's classification of 'an area with substantial and persistent unemployment.'
In the face of this optimism, Cavanaugh was re-elected overwhelmingly in 1965. In 1966, Cavanagh was elected president of both the United States Conference of Mayors
United States Conference of Mayors
United States Conference of Mayors, sometimes referred to as the United States Council of Mayors, is the official non-partisan organization for cities with populations of 30,000 or more. The cities are each represented by their mayor or other chief elected official...
and the National League of Cities
National League of Cities
The National League of Cities is an American advocacy organization representing 19,000 cities, towns, and villages, and encompassing 49 state municipal leagues....
, the only mayor to hold both posts at the same time.
1967 riots
However, deeper problems existed under the surface.After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
industry, requiring more lateral space than was available in a city, and desiring to avoid city taxes, decentralized its operations. As with other cities, Detroiters were leaving Detroit for its suburbs by the thousands by 1967. Some 22,000 residents, mostly white, moved to the suburbs in 1966 alone, following new auto plants and new housing, or using the newly constructed Interstate system to commute into Detroit.
Detroit, which was not a large financial, entertainment, educational, or government center, was a city in serious trouble. Cavanagh had inherited a $28 million budget gap in 1962. To close the gap, and to pay for the new programs he wanted to implement, Cavanagh had pushed through the legislature income
Income tax
An income tax is a tax levied on the income of individuals or businesses . Various income tax systems exist, with varying degrees of tax incidence. Income taxation can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. When the tax is levied on the income of companies, it is often called a corporate...
and commuter tax
Commuter tax
A commuter tax is a tax levied upon persons who work in a jurisdiction, but who do not live in that jurisdiction...
es for Detroit, thereby further driving out businesses and middle class residents.
On July 23, 1967, a police attempt to break up an illegal party escalated into what would be known as the 12th Street Riot
12th Street riot
The 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street riot, was a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan, that began in the early morning hours of Sunday, July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig, on the corner of 12th and...
. Feeling a large police presence would make things worse, Cavanagh acted slowly to stop the riots. They lasted for five days, killed 43 people, made over 5,000 people homeless, and required two divisions of federal paratroopers to be put down; they were the worst of the four hundred or so riots that American cities experienced in the 1960s. Cavanagh himself had to admit in July 1967, "Today we stand amidst the ashes of our hopes. We hoped against hope that what we had been doing was enough to prevent a riot. It was not enough."
Cavanaugh was severely criticized for his handling on the riots, and his last two years in office were difficult. He declined to run for re-election in 1969.
Later career
The latter part of Cavanagh's second term was also difficult for him personally, in addition to the pressure from the aftermath of the riots. Cavanagh ran for the United States SenateUnited States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
in 1966 but lost in the Democratic primary to former governor G. Mennen Williams
G. Mennen Williams
Gerhard Mennen "Soapy" Williams, , was a politician from the US state of Michigan. An heir to a personal grooming products fortune, he was known as "Soapy," and wore a trademark green bow tie with white polka dots....
. In July 1967, Cavanaugh's wife Mary Helen filed for separation, and the couple split the custody of their eight children. In October, Cavanaugh counter-sued, and in 1968 the couple went through an embarrassing public divorce trial.
After Cavanaugh left office, he returned to his private law practice in Detroit and taught law at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
. In 1974, Cavanagh again ran for office, this time for Governor, but lost in the primary election to Democrat Sander Levin, who later lost in the general election to Republican William Milliken
William Milliken
William Grawn Milliken , is an American politician and served as the 44th Governor of Michigan from January 1969 to January 1983.-Biography:...
. It was Cavanagh's last attempt at political office.
Jerry Cavanagh died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
on November 27, 1979 at St. Joseph Hospital on Harrodsburg Road in Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
. He is buried in Mt. Elliott Cemetery in Detroit.