Rise Up Detroit: Stories from the African American Struggle for Power

~ Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Dr. Peter Blackmer discusses the launch of Rise Up Detroit (www.riseupdetroit.org), a website documenting the stories of activists in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in Detroit. The website uses extensive oral history interviews and extensive archival resources from the Walter P. Reuther Library and other archives in the region to teach audiences of all ages about social justice issues through the history of the African American struggle for power. Rise Up Detroit is the second website created as part of “The North: Civil Rights and Beyond in Urban America,” an online educational tool conceived of and produced by lawyer and civil rights activist Junius Williams, Esq.

Blackmer is the lead researcher for the Rise Up North project and a Racial Equity Research Fellow at Wayne State University’s Detroit Equity Action Lab.

Related Resources
Rise Up Detroit
Rise Up Newark

Related Collections
Robert “Buddy” Battle III and Marion Battle Papers
James and Grace Lee Boggs Papers
Helen Bowers Papers
Civil Rights Congress of Michigan Records
Kenneth V. and Sheila M. Cockrel Papers
Detroit Commission on Community Relations (DCCR) / Human Rights Department Records
Detroit Revolutionary Movements Records
NAACP Detroit Branch Records
New Detroit, Inc. Records
Ernest Smith Papers

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewer: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Peter Blackmer
Sound: Troy Eller English

With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, and Paul Neirink

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Published by Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

The Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs was established as the Labor History Archives at Wayne State University in 1960, with the goal of collecting and preserving original source materials relating to the development of the American labor movement. In 1975, the Walter P. Reuther Library was constructed with funds given to Wayne State University by the United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, and through a supplementary grant from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. A later gift from the UAW funded the construction of the library's Leonard Woodcock Wing, completed in 1991. The Reuther Library is the largest labor archives in North America and is home to the collections of numerous unions and labor-related organizations. Its collection strengths extend to the political and community life of urban and metropolitan Detroit, the civil rights movement in Michigan and nationally, and women's struggles in the workplace. The Reuther Library is also the home of the Wayne State University Archives, established by the Board of Governors in 1958 in recognition of the importance and permanent value of the University's official files, records, and documents.