Category Archives: Civil Rights

“Girls, We Cannot Lose!”: Midwestern Black Women Activists During the Great Depression

January 19, 2023Civil Rights, Labor HistoryCivil Rights, Communism, Racism, Union OrganizingWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Dr. Melissa Ford explores the influence of working-class Black women in Detroit, St. Louis, and Cleveland on the development of Black radicalism in the American Midwest during the Great Depression.

Ford is an associate professor of African American history at Slippery Rock University and author of A Brick and a Bible: Black Women’s Radical Activism in the Midwest during the Great Depression.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewee: Melissa Ford
Music: Bart Bealmear

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No Equal Justice: The Legal and Civil Rights Legacy of George W. Crockett Jr.

October 13, 2022Civil Rights, UAW, Urban AffairsActivitism, Civil Rights, Communism, Detroit, Legal History, Racism, UAWWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Peter Hammer describes the life and legacy of civil rights icon George W. Crockett, Jr. A Black lawyer who fought racism and defended constitutional rights in landmark cases in the 1940s through the 1960s, Crockett brought his ethos to the Detroit Recorder’s Court during his time on the bench from 1966 through 1978, and to his decade of service in the 1980s as a Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Hammer is an A. Alfred Taubman Endowed Chair in the Wayne State University Law School and director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights. With Wayne State Law Professor Emeritus Edward J. Littlejohn, Hammer coauthored the biography, No Equal Justice: The Legacy of Civil Rights Icon George W. Crockett Jr.

Related Collections:
George Crockett Papers
Ernest Goodman Papers
Edward J. Littlejohn Papers (Available for public access in 2023)

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewee: Peter Hammer
Music: Bart Bealmear

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A “Most Conscientious and Considerate Method”: Grosse Pointe’s Gross Post-War Housing Point System

August 11, 2022Civil Rights, Urban AffairsCivil Rights, Fair housing, Race Relations, RacismWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Emma Maniere describes how homeowners associations in Grosse Pointe, an affluent suburb bordering Detroit, developed a point system following the Second World War to rank and exclude prospective homebuyers to maintain the community’s Anglo Christian whiteness and affluence. The point system, which ranked nativity and ethnicity, accent, skin tone, and occupation, among other measures, was dismantled in 1960 but left a pernicious legacy that continues to reverberate in the community today. Maniere is a doctoral candidate in the history program at New York University.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewee: Emma Maniere
Music: Bart Bealmear

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Detroit vs. Everybody: Exploring Race, Place, and Black Superheroes in DC Comics

June 16, 2022Civil Rights, Urban AffairsCivil Rights, Detroit, Race Relations, Racism, SuperheroesWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Dr. Vincent Haddad explains that while Detroit has often served as the inspiration for crime-ridden settings in comics, DC Comics rose above those stereotypes with black superheroes Amazing-Man in the 1980s series All-Star Squadron and the Cyborg solo series in the 2010s. He describes how those two series represented Detroit and issues of race, policing, and culture in a more historically-informed and nuanced manner.

Haddad is an associate professor of English at Central State University in Ohio, and the author of “Detroit vs. Everybody (Including Superheroes): Representing Race through Setting in DC Comics,” published in Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society.

Related Collections:
Virtual Motor City / Detroit News Photograph Collection

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewee: Vincent Haddad
Music: Bart Bealmear

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Brewing a Boycott: Collective Activism and the Decades-Long Coors Beer Boycott

November 18, 2021Civil Rights, Labor HistoryActivitism, AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AFT, Anti-Unionism, Boycotts, Civil Rights, UAW, UFWWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Dr. Allyson Brantley explains how large and diverse groups joined together for a decades-long consumer boycott of the Coors Brewing Company to fight against its union busting, discriminatory hiring practices, and politics. Brantley is an assistant professor of history and Director of Honors & Interdisciplinary Initiatives at the University of La Verne and author of Brewing a Boycott: How a Grassroots Coalition Fought Coors and Remade American Consumer Activism.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewer: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Allyson Brantley
Music: Bart Bealmear

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Bootlegged Aliens: How Undocumented Immigrants from Canada in the 1920s Shaped American Immigration Policy

January 21, 2021Civil Rights, Labor History, Urban AffairsCanada, Detroit, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Immigration Policy, Ontario, Undocumented Immigrants, WindsorWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Dr. Ashley Johnson Bavery explains how undocumented European immigrants coming over the Canadian border to work in the Detroit auto industry in the 1920s and 1930s spurred nativist discourse, influenced government policies toward illegal immigration, and shaped how business and labor unions used and positioned migrant labor. Dr. Bavery is Assistant Professor of History at Eastern Michigan University and author of Bootlegged Aliens: Immigration Politics on America’s Northern Border.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewer: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Ashley Johnson Bavery
Music: Bart Bealmear

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The Detroit Interracial Committee and Racial Pragmatism, 1944-1950

December 3, 2020Civil Rights, Urban AffairsCivil Rights, Detroit, Race Relations, RacismWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Sean Henry discusses the Detroit Interracial Committee’s (IRC) pragmatic attempt to ease racial tensions in the city following the 1943 Detroit riots. Assuming that it could not completely eliminate racial antagonism, the IRC instead used its Community Barometer initiative and the Detroit Public Schools program for intercultural education to identify and manage systemic racial inequities in the city. Henry recently received an MA in History from the University of Chicago and is a college transition advisor in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. His article on the Detroit Interracial Committee was named the 2019 Graduate Student Essay Prize Winner in the Spring 2020 issue of the Michigan Historical Review.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewer: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Sean Henry
Music: Bart Bealmear

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When It Happened Here: Michigan and the Transnational Development of American Fascism, 1920-1945

September 10, 2020Civil Rights, Urban AffairsBlack Legion, Civil Rights, Fascism, Father Coughlin, Henry Ford, Michigan, PoliticsWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Salaina Catalano Crumb explains how American fascism developed and thrived in Michigan from the 1920s through the 1940s due to the influence of right-wing individuals and organizations swayed by the politics of Nazi Germany, including industrialist Henry Ford, anti-communist clergy members Father Coughlin and Reverend Gerald L.K. Smith, militant secret societies like the Black Legion, and immigrant veterans’ and fascist groups including the German American Bund. Crumb received dual MA/MSc degrees in International & World History at Columbia University and the London School of Economics, and works in the automotive field.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewee: Salaina Catalano Crumb
Music: Bart Bealmear

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(Re)Introducing the Michigan Black History Bibliography

July 9, 2020Civil Rights, Urban Affairs, Wayne State UniversityArchives, Archives talk, Black History, Civil Rights, Michigan, Wayne State UniversityWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Reuther Library field archivist Dr. Louis Jones and former archives students and staff members Mattie Dugan and Allie Penn discuss the Reuther’s Michigan Black History Bibliography (MBHB) and the multi-year, student-led project to digitize a decades-old index card file. Meticulously compiled by Reuther librarian Roberta McBride in the 1970s, the MBHB cataloged well-known and obscure articles, theses, and other bibliographic sources about African American history in Michigan, including slavery in Detroit in the 1700s, Underground Railroad activity in the 1800s, the racism and discrimination Blacks faced in the 1900s, and African American community-building efforts throughout. Jones discusses the history and importance of the MBHB card file, while Dugan and Penn describe the efforts of the Wayne State University chapter of the Society of American Archivists to digitize the resource, with financial assistance of a Carnegie-Whitney Grant from the American Library Association.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewees: Louis Jones, Mattie Dugan, Alexandrea Penn
Sound: Troy Eller English
With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, Paul Neirink, and Mary Wallace

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Race and Rebellion: Reexamining the Unlearned Lessons of the Kerner Report a Half Century Later

June 9, 2020Civil Rights, Urban AffairsCivil Rights, Detroit, Race Relations, Racism, Rebellions, Riots, UprisingsWalter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Reuther Library outreach archivist Meghan Courtney discusses the conclusions of the 1968 Kerner Commission report in the context of today’s protests over race relations and police brutality. Following infamous rebellions in Detroit and Newark in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, chaired by Illinois governor Otto Kerner, to identify the root causes of urban racial unrest and prevent further violence in American cities. In its final report, the Commission placed the ultimate blame for so-called riots on lack of educational and economic opportunity for African Americans, ingrained institutional and societal racism, and militarized police forces, among other reasons. President Johnson and other leaders largely failed to adopt the recommendations suggested by the Kerner Commission to reduce racial tension by creating more equitable opportunities for African Americans in employment, education, welfare, and suitable housing. Courtney explains how she uses the Kerner Commission report to help students better understand the root causes of Detroit’s 1967 uprising and why that unrest continues today.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Meghan Courtney
Sound: Troy Eller English
With support from the Reuther Podcast Collective: Bart Bealmear, Elizabeth Clemens, Meghan Courtney, Troy Eller English, Dan Golodner, Paul Neirink, and Mary Wallace

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Tales from the Reuther Library

Stories on labor history, Detroit, and Wayne State University

Category Archives: Civil Rights

“Girls, We Cannot Lose!”: Midwestern Black Women Activists During the Great Depression

No Equal Justice: The Legal and Civil Rights Legacy of George W. Crockett Jr.

A “Most Conscientious and Considerate Method”: Grosse Pointe’s Gross Post-War Housing Point System

Detroit vs. Everybody: Exploring Race, Place, and Black Superheroes in DC Comics

Brewing a Boycott: Collective Activism and the Decades-Long Coors Beer Boycott

Bootlegged Aliens: How Undocumented Immigrants from Canada in the 1920s Shaped American Immigration Policy

The Detroit Interracial Committee and Racial Pragmatism, 1944-1950

When It Happened Here: Michigan and the Transnational Development of American Fascism, 1920-1945

(Re)Introducing the Michigan Black History Bibliography

Race and Rebellion: Reexamining the Unlearned Lessons of the Kerner Report a Half Century Later