(WXYZ) — The Michigan House has passed a resolution that would replace a statue of former Michigan Gov. Lewis Cass inside the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.
The resolution was introduced by State Sen. Adam Hollier, and called for replacing the statue of Cass with Coleman A. Young, Detroit's first Black mayor.
It passed the State Senate in June.
Hollier doesn’t want Cass to represent Michigan in Statuary Hall, where each state is represented by two figures.
“It should be about who we raise up,” Hollier said.
Cass, who represented Michigan in the U.S. Senate in the 1800s and held several other prominent jobs, including secretary of war under President Andrew Jackson.
Cass, who died in 1866, was governor of Michigan before it became a state. He also owned slaves and removed Native Americans from tribal lands while serving in Jackson’s administration.
An image of former President Gerald Ford is the state's other statue at the Capitol.
In 2020, a regional education agency in southwestern Michigan named for Cass said it was dropping his name.
