Podcast: Assembly Line Housing: Walter P. Reuther, George Romney, and Operation Breakthrough – Part 1
Posted August 7th, 2018 by teller
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- African Americans--Michigan--Detroit--History--20th century
- African Americans--Michigan--Detroit--Social conditions--20th century
- City planning
- Collective bargaining
- Detroit--economic conditions
- Detroit--race relations
- Detroit--social conditions
- Discrimination in housing--Michigan
- Housing development--Michigan--Detroit
- Integration
- Labor unions
- Minorities--Housing
- Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994
- Race relations
- Racism
- Reuther, Walter, 1907-1970
- Romney, George
- Segregation
- Urban renewal
In the first of a two-part series, Dr. Kristin Szylvian explains the role of the American labor movement, and UAW president Walter Reuther in particular, in lobbying for and shaping fair housing programs and legislation in Detroit and nationally after the Second World War. That influence paved the way for an unlikely alliance in the 1960s between Reuther and George Romney, the former Republican governor of Michigan, when they joined together in the late 1960s to launch Operation Breakthrough, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program to use union-made manufactured housing to alleviate the housing crisis in minority communities while also creating job opportunities and encouraging racial and income integration in the larger community.
Related Collections
UAW President’s Office: Walter P. Reuther Records
Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Kristin M. Szylvian
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