Blogs

The Walter P. Reuther Library announces the retirement of Mike Smith, Archivist. Mike’s duties at the time of his retirement focused on the archives of the United Automobile Workers and the Jewish Community Archives. However, he wore many hats during his tenure at the Reuther.  read more »

The following is a guest post by Devin Erlandson, recipient of the Ronald Raven Annual Award and the Summer 2014 intern for the Wayne State University Archives.

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 which excluded all people of Japanese ancestry from living on the Pacific coast. Of the 127,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast, 112,000 were sent to internment camps. 2,000 Nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans with American citizenship) were uprooted from colleges and universities—their academic future was suddenly very uncertain.

The National Japanese American Student Relocation Council, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, worked to relocate and resettle Nisei students at Midwestern and East Coast colleges and universities. One such institution was Wayne University.  read more »

On June 28, 1990, AFSCME members welcomed Nelson Mandela to their biannual convention in Miami, Florida, chanting, “Mandela, yes! Apartheid, no!”  read more »

Disc jockey, voice actor, and Wayne State University alumnus Casey Kasem passed away on June 15, 2014.

Born Kemal Amin Kasem to Lebanese immigrant parents, Kasem attended Northwestern High School in Detroit, and served in the Korean War before returning to enroll at Wayne State University. He graduated from Wayne State in 1958, and over the years he returned to Detroit to support his school.  read more »