Book Announcement: The Color of Law

Next month metropolitan Detroit authors and frequent Reuther Library researchers Steve Babson, Dave Riddle, and David Elsila are releasing their book The Color of Law: Ernie Goodman, Detroit, and the Struggle for Labor and Civil Rights, which uses information garnered from collections held at the Reuther.

We have many records and manuscript collections that reflect how the local government, legal system, and organizations have addressed the intersection of civil rights, race, and the law in metro Detroit. Relevant collections include those of judges George Crockett, George Edwards, Jr., and Damon Keith, and the collections of lawyers such as Ernest Goodman and George Edwards, Sr. The papers of Detroit mayors Jerome Cavanagh and Coleman A. Young document how government responded to civil rights issues within the city limits. The collections of many legal and community organizations highlight local civil rights issues, including those of Morris Gleicher and the ACLU of Michigan, the Civil Rights Congress of Michigan, NAACP Detroit Branch, Detroit Commission on Community Relations, and the UAW Fair Practices and Anti-Discrimination Department.

The Color of Law uses many of these important collections to document the legal history of race and civil rights in Detroit. Published by the Wayne State University Press, The Color of Law will be available October 2010. Further information is available at the Wayne State University Press Web site http://wsupress.wayne.edu/books/1214/Color-of-Law

Troy Eller is the Archivist for the Society of Women Engineers.