21 Facts About Albert Cobo

Albert Eugene Cobo was an American politician who served as mayor of Detroit from 1950 until his death in 1957.

Albert Cobo was born in Detroit on October 2,1893.

Albert Cobo married his childhood sweetheart, Ethel; the couple had two daughters, Jean and Elaine.

Albert Cobo subsequently ran for and was elected Detroit City Treasurer in 1935.

Albert Cobo began his career as Detroit's mayor in 1949 after defeating Liberal Common Council member George Edwards.

Albert Cobo embodied a Republican, corporate executive, real estate investor who adamantly focused his campaign on race and public housing.

White neighborhood improvement associations strongly endorsed Albert Cobo, motivated by the threat of public housing, allowing him to sweep largely white precincts in the Northeast and Northwest sides.

Albert Cobo won the election in a Democratic city and dominated union voters.

Albert Cobo was elected twice more, in 1951 and 1953.

Accordingly, Albert Cobo once said in a radio interview, "The people who pay taxes want better services for their money", touting as justification for his actions that private property owners, and not public housing benefactors, were the ones primarily paying the city taxes.

Albert Cobo appointed non-career officials with strong business background to many key positions in the administration of Detroit.

In 1951, Cobo appointed Alan E MacNichol, president of the Federated Civic Association of Northwest Detroit, to the City Plan Commission.

Albert Cobo vigorously opposed public housing because he opposed subsidies for poor people in favor of more private developer's ownership of property.

Albert Cobo rejected Beulah Whitby, because of her opposition to segregated public housing, and John Field, the director of the Toledo Human Relations Board.

Albert Cobo supported urban renewal projects like the Civic Center, Medical Center and apartment projects in the predominantly Black inner city for middle-income families.

Albert Cobo's stopping of plans for the Schoolcraft Gardens Cooperative on Detroit's far Northwest Side represented a racially fueled and crushing blow to improving housing equality.

Albert Cobo heavily pushed for the expansion of the expressway system; many of his backers were wealthy suburbanites, who wanted a faster, easier commute into the city.

Albert Cobo did not seek a fourth term as mayor in 1957.

Albert Cobo was mayor at the apex of the city's population of about 1.8 million in 1950.

Albert Cobo died of a heart attack on September 12,1957, just months before his last term in office would have ended.

Albert Cobo Center was built and named in his honor.