By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Cass County could teach America a thing or two about racial tolerance, former Detroit mayor Dennis W. Archer suggested Tuesday at Southwestern Michigan College.
Born in Detroit, Archer grew up in Cassopolis "too poor to pay attention," but his parents instilled ambition and civility in their only child.
Archer went to Western Michigan University and became a special education teacher, then an attorney and built a remarkable resume: Michigan Supreme Court justice, president of the State Bar Association and immediate past president of the American Bar Association.
Archer promoted mentoring while introducing Janet Lawson, executive director of the Michigan Community Service Commission.
His foundation awards $50,000 in $5,000 scholarships to Western Michigan University and a like amount to Wayne State University.
Archer said, "We must take time to pause and appreciate the wonderful past that Cass County and all of us have together. It provides a beautiful road map for the future. There's a lot Cass County can offer this state. You should be very proud, because I am, to have lived here."
No prominent people
of color in Cassopolis
Archer said the village's two barbers included a man and a woman. She told him, "Dennis, I can't tell you what it is that's going to happen in your life, but you're going to do something that's sort of different and it's going to make people proud."
The Browning
of America
The United States has 294 million inhabitants, including 30 percent people of color.
In 1982, "The social scientists and demographers started writing about this phenomenon, 'The Browning of America.' They predicted, as the result of the relaxation of immigration rules and birth rate that, by the year 2056, the majority of people living in the United States of America would be people of color. That the largest single ethnic minority group would be the Latino population," Archer said.
Today, living in a global marketplace, businesses compete for customers in China (population, 1.3 billion), India (just over 1 billion) and Pakistan (just under 1 billion).