Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud (at podium) speaks Nov. 21 during a Unity press conference on Altar Road in Dearborn following recent anti-Islamic protests in the city, while politicians, including Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Wayne County Commissioner Sam Baydoun, newly elected Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield and Michigan Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist, as well as faith leaders from the three Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — join him.
By SUE SUCHYTA
Times-Herald Newspapers
DEARBORN – Despite 2026 Republican gubernatorial hopeful Anthony Hudson of Grand Blanc admitting that the city is not under Sharia Law after a welcoming tour, other angry anti-Islamic protestors still marched angrily.
Out-of-state protestors led by Jake Lang of Florida, a Jan. 6, 2021, protestor pardoned by President Donald Trump, marched along Michigan Avenue with others Nov. 18 from Schaefer to the Dearborn Administration Center, carrying an “Americans Again Islamification” banner. Ironically, their march took them past a Christmas manager scene at the former city hall, past two “gentlemen clubs” and restaurants serving non-Halal foods, in direct contradiction to the protestors’ belief that the city was under Sharia Law.
Anti-Islamic protestor Jake Lang from Florida, a Jan. 6, 2021, protestor pardoned by President Donald Trump, expresses vile and profane rhetoric against Muslims during the Nov. 18 Dearborn City Council meeting.
The protestors then attended the Nov. 18 City Council meeting. While most of the speakers were civil, Lang was vile and profane during his time at the podium during public comment time, speaking anti-Islamic vitriol, and was eventually escorted out of the chamber by Dearborn police officers.
Mayor Abdullah Hammoud spoke at the end of the meeting, praising Dearborn’s diversity and coexistence.
He said he wants the city and world that his daughters will grow up in, and the city that he knows, where small businesses, some run by immigrants, are helped to succeed while children sing happily on the way to school.
“Dozens of protestors were marching through our streets shouting about Muslim-Americans,” he said. “Some of them were misled and others came with hate in their hearts.”
Hammoud said one man wrapped a Quran in bacon and screamed at residents, calling them monkeys and saying they were incompatible with Americans.
“They did this, ironically, while walking past our historic Nativity scene at the old city hall,” Hammoud said. “A symbol of peace and a symbol that is sacred to thousands of Christian families in our city and Muslim families as well.”
Hammoud said Dearborn showed who it truly was, with a local barber, who said he would not stop loving them as human beings no matter what they said as he passed out water bottles to the protestors marching by, saying that he hopes the ignorance in their heart shatters someday.
“That is Dearborn,” he said. “A place where neighbors show up for one another, where harm is met with compassion, where hate is rooted out by dignity, by decency and by shared humanity.”
Hammoud said that as the marchers followed the same route as the annual Memorial Day Parade, residents were reminded of something fundamental: “Courage is not loud.”
“Patriotism is not cruel and strength is not hateful,” he said. “The marchers tried to divide, but Dearborn did what Dearborn always does: We stood tall.
“We are a city built by workers, by immigrants, by veterans and by families that believe in the promise of America.”
Hammoud said that night was not about those who marched, but about Dearborn residents, their stories and stories of progress.
“As long as I am mayor, that promise will never be broken.”
On Nov. 21, a Unity rally was held on Altar Road in Dearborn, where a mosque and churches exist peacefully side by side.
In addition to Hammoud, speakers included U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-12th District), Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Wayne County Commissioner Sam Baydoun and newly elected Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield.
Protestors march east on Michigan Avenue approaching Greenfield Road in Dearborn Nov. 18 with a banner identifying them as “Americans Against Islamification,” led by Jake Lang, a Jan. 6, 2021, protestor pardoned by President Donald Trump.
The Rev. Bob McCabe of Divine Child Catholic Church spoke, and other clergy from the three Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – were present in support as well.
Tlaib said the people of Dearborn did not deserve the violent, hateful rhetoric that they witnessed on Nov. 18 from people who do not even live here or understand them.
“One thing that hatemongers will never get is that our shared humanity will survive against racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia, and is stronger than anything they ever will try to spew,” she said. “It will only make us stronger as a community.”
Gilchrist said everyone has a place in Dearborn.
“Today, all of us in Michigan are living to the best of our ideals,” he said.
Gilchrist said Michiganders show that everyone is welcome here.
“We reject all political rejection and violence,” he said. “We know that this state is actually big enough for everyone to be here, to succeed and to be the best version you want to be.”
Benson said she stood in unity with Dearborn.
“All of us standing here today from different religious backgrounds, from different faith backgrounds, from different parts of this state is what is best of Michigan,” she said. “What is best when we all come together.”
Benson said what the public saw this week was a reminder of the era that we are in.
“An era where people use hate and division to divide and turn us against each other, when what is truly best is when we see each other, when we see our common humanity, when we recognize that we are all in this together and our economy cannot thrive or grow and a democracy cannot succeed if we do not recognize that we are all in this together.”
Michigan 2026 Republican gubernatorial hopeful Anthony Hudson, a truck driver from Grand Blanc, speaks at the Nov. 18 Dearborn City Council meeting after discovering that Dearborn was not under Sharia Law, as he had previously believed, while anti-Islamic protestor Jake Lang of Florida, a Jan. 6, 2021, protestor pardoned by President Donald Trump, to the left in a vest, holding a cell phone, records him.
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud (left) speaks after the Nov. 18 City Council meeting with Michigan 2026 Republican gubernatorial hopeful Anthony Hudson (third from left), a truck driver from Grand Blanc, who said he found during his visit to Dearborn that the city was not under Sharia Law, as her earlier believed.
Anti-Islamic protestors, counter-protestors, residents and police officers fill the council chambers during the Nov. 18 Dearborn City Council meeting.