Schools and the Rise of Mass Incarceration in a Post-Brown World

May 29, 2025May 22, 2025 ~ Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Dr. Matt Kautz explores how evolving school disciplinary practices, changes in crime reporting, and political pressure in the decades following school desegregation led to the rise of student suspensions, expulsions, dropouts, and the school-to-prison pipeline in Detroit and other cities. Kautz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Leadership and Counseling at Eastern Michigan University. His article “Schools and the Rise of Mass Incarceration in a Post-Brown World,” was published in the Summer 2024 issue of Harvard Educational Review.

Episode Credits
Interviewee: Matt Kautz
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Music: Bart Bealmear

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A Fond Farewell with Audiovisual Archivist Mary Wallace

December 23, 2024 ~ Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Reuther Library audiovisual archivist Mary Wallace has worn many hats over the past 27 years, from student page in the Reading Room to interim director and chief weather-spotter and safety monitor. As she prepares to retire in January 2025, Wallace reflects on the changes she’s seen at the Reuther and in the field, shares a few of her favorite collections and reference requests, and retells some of the more entertaining stories of life at the Reuther.

Related Resources:
Walter P. Reuther Library

Episode Credits
Interviewee: Mary Wallace
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Music: Bart Bealmear

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Detroit Remains: Using Historical Archeology to Connect Detroit’s Past to Its Present

May 24, 2022May 19, 2022 ~ Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Dr. Krysta Ryzewski explains how historical archaeology digs at famous Detroit locales – including the Little Harry speakeasy, the Blue Bird Inn, and the Grande Ballroom – have clarified how underrepresented communities of Detroit experienced and responded to the Great Migration, changing economic forces, and a shifting political and social landscape in the 20th century. Ryzweski is an associate professor and chair of the Anthropology Department at Wayne State University, and author of Detroit Remains: Archaeology and Community Histories of Six Legendary Places.

Related Collections:
Virtual Motor City / Detroit News Photograph Collection

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewee: Krysta Ryzewski
Music: Bart Bealmear

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It’s Been a Year: Reuther Library Director Aliqae Geraci Recalls Her First Year on the Job During a Global Pandemic

March 18, 2021March 18, 2021 ~ Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Aliqae Geraci explains that she had big plans when she became director of the Reuther Library a year ago, and those plans were immediately scuttled when her first day on the job coincided with the first day Wayne State University’s on-campus operations were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She describes how she and the Reuther pivoted in the past year to safely provide patrons virtual access to physical archival materials, and contemplates how the pandemic will and won’t change the Reuther’s services in the future. Geraci also shares how she became involved in labor libraries, and what she’s been binging during the pandemic.

Related Resources:
Meet Our New Director, Aliqae Geraci

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewer: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Aliqae Geraci
Music: Bart Bealmear

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Reading the Room: How César Chávez’s Early Life Prepared Him to Lead

Portrait of Cesar Chavez taken at his 8th grade graduation, 1942. This was his final year of formal schooling before he went to work in the fields full time.

August 20, 2020August 17, 2020 ~ Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Dr. Clay Walker explains how César Chávez’s lifeworld discourse – the language, culture, and experiences that shaped who he was and how he encountered and navigated the world – uniquely prepared him to lead the United Farm Workers and effectively communicate his message to a diverse audience. Dr. Walker is a senior lecturer in English and literacy studies at Wayne State University.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Clay Walker
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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Mechanical Engineer To Booth Babe and Back Again: The Tragicomic Career of Wayne State Engineering Alum Lucille Pieti

July 30, 2020July 29, 2020 ~ Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Society of Women Engineers archivist Troy Eller English shares the tragicomic story of Lucille Pieti, 1950 mechanical engineering alum and Miss Wayne University. Sidelined in technical writing despite her degree and experience, Pieti found her career veering farther and farther away from engineering in the mid-1950s as her bosses at Chrysler capitalized on her beauty rather than her brains. Molded into a spokeswoman at auto shows and in Hollywood, and giving specs on the Dodge La Femme’s pink umbrella instead of its engine block, Pieti reclaimed her engineering identity by leaving Chrysler, and the country, in 1955.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: 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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(Re)Introducing the Michigan Black History Bibliography

Michigan Black History Bibliography Sample Card

July 9, 2020July 10, 2020 ~ Walter 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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Creating that “A-Ha!” Moment: Using Archives and Primary Sources to Inspire Active Learning in the Classroom

A group exploring primary source maps in the Reuther Library reading room, September 27, 2017

April 30, 2020April 28, 2020 ~ Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Outreach archivist Meghan Courtney discusses the Reuther Library’s efforts to extend primary source instruction beyond history classes to inspire active learning in the classroom and empower students to become part of scholarly conversations. Through the Reuther’s innovative Archives and Primary Resource Education Lab (APREL), Wayne State economics students have studied Detroit-area public food programs to understand the intersection of economics and public health. Law students have examined police reports, eye-witness accounts, and contemporary reporting to weigh the evidence and draw their own conclusions about Detroit’s infamous 1969 New Bethel Incident. And K-12 teachers have learned how to integrate primary source instruction into their curricula at all age levels. Courtney also discusses how students and teachers can access digitized archival resources, and offers suggestions and resources for archives and special collections looking to make their archival instruction more robust.

Detroit 1967
Judge Damon Keith: A Life of Service and Great Purpose
League of Revolutionary Black Workers
Radicalism in American Politics
What is the Labor Movement

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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Poorly Described Folders and Human Hair: Processing Report with ALUA Archivist Shae Rafferty

April 16, 2020April 16, 2020 ~ Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Shae Rafferty, the Reuther Library’s Labor and Urban Affairs Archivist, explains what happens behind the scenes to get donated collections ready for researchers. She discusses how collections are prioritized for processing, or organizing and describing them to make it easier for researchers to find the information they’re looking for. Rafferty describes some of the memorable things she has found in the collections she has processed, both pleasant (scrapbooks made by friends and Detroit theater ushers in the early 1900s) and unpleasant (human hair). She also recalls finding a deeply important but largely forgotten log of 1940s racial incidents in a folder unhelpfully titled, “Barometer Report,” emphasizing how important it is for archivists to re-evaluate and re-describe the contents of collections to make them more findable for researchers.

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Shae Rafferty
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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Punishing Promise: School Discipline in the Era of Desegregation

October 17, 2019October 17, 2019 ~ Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Matt Kautz explains how his observations while teaching in Detroit and Chicago led him to study the rise of suspensions and other disciplinary tactics in urban districts during school desegregation, fueling the school-to-prison pipeline. His research has focused particularly on Boston, Detroit, and Louisville during court-ordered desegregation, for which there is ample documentation of school disciplinary codes, statistics on usage against students, and responses from administrators, teachers, law enforcement, and the community. Kautz is a Ph.D. candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University

Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Interviewer: Dan Golodner
Interviewees: Matt Kautz
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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