African American labor leaders

D. Rick Martin Papers

kschmeling — Wed, 03 Apr 2019 15:01:55 -0400

Dewey Ricardo Martin was born in Detroit on March 22, 1952. He graduated from Detroit MacKenzie High School in 1970; and in that same year began working in the Ford Rouge Coke Oven and Blast Furnace Plant. Here he joined the UAW Local 600 and it wasn’t long before he won his first union office at age 20 when he was elected District Committeeman. In 1974 he was elected Bargaining Committeeman and in 1975 he continued moving up by winning the election for President. He went on to complete three consecutive terms as President of UAW Local 600 as well as being an elected delegate to four UAW Constitutional Conventions. During his time as President, Martin won the first 25-and-Out retirement plan for Coke Oven workers in the country. In 1983 Martin received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Wayne State University. Turning his attentions towards law, he attended the University of Michigan Law School from 1985 to 1988. Admitted to the State Bar of Michigan in 1989 he went on to run a successful law practice where he was involved with several high profile cases in Michigan.

James Moore Audio Recordings

eclemens — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 09:43:32 -0500

In the fall of 1983 Professor James Moore recorded an oral history interview with Shelton Tappes and Catherine "Babe" Gelles, both early organizers for the United Auto Workers Union (UAW). Taped in Tappes' Detroit home, the interviewees gave firsthand account of 1937's "Battle of the Overpass," a brutal response by members of the Ford Service Department to the UAW organizing effort against Ford Motor Company. The interview lends offers two different vantage points: Gelles', as that of a member of the UAW's Women's Auxiliary, and Tappes' as that of a Ford Employee and early Black organizer. Their testimony includes description of brutal assaults on organizers that occurred at the hands of Ford Servicemen, including Walter Reuther, Richard Frankensteen, and Gelles herself; demonstrated anti-union bias by the Dearborn Police Department; description of triage set up in the union hall to attend to the wounded; and UAW organizing efforts that followed the event. The interview was recorded for use in "Mass Producing Fords", a documentary for the United Kingdom's Open University.

Horace Sheffield Jr. Papers Now Open

lminadeo — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 14:21:03 -0500

The Walter P. Reuther Library is pleased to announce an addition to the Horace Sheffield Jr. Papers is now open for research. These materials were previously under the stewardship of the Charles H. Wright Museum and join a small existing collection of Sheffield’s at the Reuther. Sheffield was a prominent voice in Detroit’s labor and civil rights movements, and his collection is an exciting example of the overlapping movements in Detroit. read more »

[Podcast] "Girls, We Cannot Lose!": Midwestern Black Women Activists During the Great Depression

teller — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 12:46:10 -0500

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. read more »