1. Roman Stanley Gribbs was an American attorney and politician who served as the mayor of Detroit from 1970 to 1974.
17 Facts About Roman Gribbs
1. 2.
Later, Gribbs served as a judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals.
3.
Roman Gribbs was the last white mayor of the city, which was in the midst of becoming a majority-black city, until the election of Mike Duggan in 2013.
4.
Roman Gribbs was raised on a farm near Capac, Michigan.
5.
Roman Gribbs's parents were Polish immigrants who were basically farmers, though his father worked on the Ford assembly line.
6.
Roman Gribbs graduated from the University of Detroit in 1952 with a degree in economics and accounting, and received a law degree from the same institution in 1954.
7.
Roman Gribbs was an instructor at the university from 1955 through 1957, and became an assistant prosecutor in 1957, a position he held until 1964.
8.
Roman Gribbs entered private practice in 1964, in the Detroit law firm of Shaheen, Gribbs, and Brickley, where he was partner with Joseph Shaheen of Grosse Pointe Park.
9.
Roman Gribbs ran for a seat as a Recorder's Court judge in 1966, but lost.
10.
In 1968, Roman Gribbs was appointed sheriff of Wayne County, later winning a full four-year term.
11.
In 1969, Roman Gribbs created the Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets, a secret and elite police unit.
12.
In 1973, Roman Gribbs declined to seek re-election and was replaced by Coleman Young who was elected Detroit's first African-American mayor in November of that year.
13.
Roman Gribbs was elected to the Michigan Court of Appeals in 1982, upon which he served until his retirement in 2001.
14.
Roman Gribbs retired to Northville in suburban Detroit, and conducted private practice in mediation and arbitration.
15.
Roman Gribbs was the chairman of the board of directors of the Piast Institute, a research center devoted to Polish and Polish American affairs.
16.
Roman Gribbs was married to Katherine Stratis from 1954 to 1982, and together they had four daughters and one son.
17.
Roman Gribbs died on April 5,2016, at his home in Northville, Michigan from cancer, aged 90.