After months of quiet discussion, the idea of renaming Cobo Center has surfaced as a real possibility.
Mayor Albert Cobo
John Gallagher reports in Thursday's Free Press that at Wednesday’s meeting of the Detroit Downtown Development Authority, DDA board member Steve Ogden cited a Free Press piece on the five worst mayors in Detroit’s history and noted that Albert Cobo, left, was fourth worst due to his race-baiting rhetoric in the 1950s.
“He was no friend to you and you and you,” Ogden said, pointing to his fellow black members on the board.
Gallagher writes:
Then Waymon Guillebeaux, executive vice president of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. and a member of the Cobo regional authority board, who was seated a few feet away, admitted that the Cobo authority board has already had discussions of a potential name change for the convention center.
One motive is to raise millions of dollars by selling naming rights, which could pay for further enhancements to Cobo.
Cobo opposed the movement of black Detroiters into white neighborhoods at a time when more progressive leadership could have done much to ease racial tensions, already raw from the 1943 riot.
Officials spoke about changing the Cobo name early this year to Hour Detroit and Deadline Detroit.
