Good evening, everyone:

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The Detroit region lost one of its most principled, passionate, and decent leaders earlier this week: Ismael Ahmed, or “Ish ” as he was affectionately known.

Ish was ubiquitous. He was the founder the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn in 2005 . . . the co-founder in 1971, and subsequently executive director (from 1984-2008), of ACCESS (Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services) . . . the creator of the Concert of Colors . . . the host of  “This Island Earth ” radio show on WDET FM . . . Governor Granholm ’s Director of the Department of Human Services (the first Arab-American to serve in a state cabinet position) . . . the associate provost for integrated learning and community partnerships at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. He was not only to be found everywhere brimming with energy and passion, but he was also indefatigable in promoting the causes he believed in.

Ish was born in 1947 in New York to first-generation Lebanese and Egyptian immigrants, moving with his family to Detroit six years later. After serving in the army in South Korea in the 1960s, he returned to Detroit to serve a union activist in auto plants. While attending the University of Michigan, where he would graduate in 1975, Ish co-founded ACCESS in a storefront in south Dearborn and helped grow it into one of the nation ’s largest organizations dedicated to helping Arab immigrants navigate life in the United States.

Ish established the Concert of Colors in 1993 to promote racial justice and multi-cultural exchange through a staggering diversity of music, food, and the arts. It continues to this day in venues across Detroit, drawing in both neighborhood organizations and institutions like the Wright Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, Chene park, and the Michigan Science Center.

The Arab American National Museum is unique in America. It is an encyclopedia of the Arab world ’s history, including historical documents, artifacts, and oral histories.

The regard in which Ish was held was suggested – however incompletely – by an astounding number of awards and honorary degrees, including: an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Michigan-Dearborn . . . an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Marygrove College in Detroit . . . a Doctor of Public Service Honorary Degree from Grand Valley State University. His list of board service is too long to reproduce.

In one of my first visits to the Mackinac Policy Conference on the island, Ish introduced himself. He was wearing a spectacularly-colored tie, so I thought I would break the ice by complimenting him on it. Without hesitating, he took it off and handed it to me. I told him I couldn ’t possibly accept it. He replied that it was a tradition of his culture to gift it in such a circumstance. I ’ve never quite understood whether that was true, or whether it was simply Ish being Ish: gracious, generous, thoughtful, and a tiny bit mischievous. I don ’t know about the former. But I am absolutely sure of the latter.

He was a wonderful man of deep integrity and consequence. He will be missed beyond measure.

May he have peace and mercy in the afterlife.

Rip

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