The editor of a quarterly journal published by the historical commission of Dearborn, Michigan will not work on any more of the magazines after he published an article about Henry Ford’s history of anti-Semitism in the publication’s 100th anniversary issue.
Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly prevented the January issue of the magazine, paid for by the city, from being mailed out. The Dearborn Historian magazine editor Bill McGraw, who worked on an issue-by-issue contract, also was let go.
The cover includes a black and white photo of Ford next to the quote: “The Jew is a race that has no civilization to point to, no aspiring religion, no great achievement in any realm.”
“I think given what’s going on in the world today with the rise of anti-Semitism, what happened to Pittsburgh in October and with the 100-year anniversary of the paper last week, it’s important to know that’s still playing a huge role online with extremists. It seems if Dearborn is going to be proud of Henry Ford, we should look at the whole picture,” McGraw, who has lived in Dearborn for 30 years, told The Detroit News.
The Dearborn Historical Museum Commission voted to call on O’Reilly to rescind his decision to not mail the magazines to its more than 200 subscribers.
Andrew Kercher, assistant chief curator of the Dearborn Historical Museum told the Detroit News that O’Reilly ordered acting chief curator Jack Tate to terminate their contract with McGraw, a former reporter and editor for the Detroit Free Press.
O’Reilly in a statement released on Friday afternoon said publishing Ford’s offensive opinions “could become a distraction from our continuing messages of inclusion and respect.” Dearborn’s population is about one-third Arab-American, according to the New York Times.
The article was published online on Deadline Detroit.
Source material can be found at this site.
