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Leadership Lens: Bob Bruttell
Dr. Warren R. Copeland, Former Mayor of Springfield, OH and My Friend
October 21, 2024
I have been thinking about my dear friends in Springfield, Ohio lately. I have a special concern for Springfield as you will read below. That community is being tossed about by the same kind of choppy circumstances that we here in Detroit often have to navigate. In their case they have a significant number of Haitian immigrants, legal refugees, who are contributing significantly to their community. In our case we have many Arabs and Muslims who also contribute significantly to the tapestry of cultures that makes Detroit one of the most interesting cities on the planet. My heart goes out to Springfield. They will need to work hard to encourage Bridging principles like respectful attention to other’s stories and abiding curiosity. In ways similar to what we have had to do here in Detroit, they will have to take collective action to blunt the sharp and damaging rhetoric directed at Springfield.
As I think most of us know, the Haitians have come to Springfield as a refuge from Haiti to escape from environmental disaster and violence. They were given “temporary protective status” by the Homeland Security Department.
Let’s stipulate here that uprooting oneself from home is devastatingly difficult. And let’s also admit that thousands of immigrants moving into a small community is disruptive. This situation is, for the refugees and the long-time residents, hard to manage compassionately and gracefully. That is all the more reason that I lament the death of my dear friend, Dr. Warren R. Copeland, who was the mayor serving Springfield for 35 years until shortly before his death in 2023. Besides being compassionate to his core, Warren was one of the most insightful politicians that I have had the pleasure to know. He worked passionately for the people of Springfield to bring industry and jobs back to his small midwestern town. Today Springfield is reviving, the Haitians are needed and are being welcomed into those manufacturing jobs.
Warren and I were friends since the late 1990s when I joined the Social Ethics Seminar (SES). We met in person twice per year and through email and text in between. A graduate of the University of Chicago, he taught at Whittenburg University in Springfield where the SES often held our meetings. He authored two books: “And the Poor Get Welfare: The Ethics of Poverty in the United States” and “Doing Justice in Our Cities: Lessons in Public Policy in America’s Heartland.” We shared a passion for understanding social ethics. He lived what he taught and wrote about.
It goes without saying that Clara Copeland, his wife of 57 years, misses him intensely. In speaking to Clara over a zoom call that included a number of Warren’s friends from Springfield, she told me how much the city of Springfield also misses him at this time. I have no doubt she is right. Warren had a goodness and grace about him that caused people to listen – so down to earth and so intelligent. He knew self-serving nonsense when he saw it. He would have given no quarter to people kicking around the city he loved to gain political advantage oblivious to the harm. Conversely, Clara was also happy that he was not there to see and feel the damage that was being wrought in the city he served so faithfully.
So it is that my heart goes out to the people of Springfield. We here in Detroit know something about the feelings that they are experiencing there. Metropolitan Detroit’s Arab and Muslim community is often maligned by people similarly unconcerned about the harm it does. As we have found here, the community has had to step up. They cannot allow the outside ill-tempered voices to be the only ones heard. Their voices and their values will have to be prominent in the public discourse. This is hard as we at IFLC well know. On many occasions we have had to stand up for our neighbors and friends who certainly do not deserve the deleterious rhetoric directed at them. We know what Clara and the good people of Springfield are wrestling with at this time. Clara and Springfield miss Warren. And I do too.
