Walter Philip Reuther was an American leader of organized labor and civil rights activist who built the United Automobile Workers into one of the most progressive labor unions in American history.
69 Facts About Walter Reuther
2.
Walter Reuther saw labor movements not as narrow special interest groups but as instruments to advance social justice and human rights in democratic societies.
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Walter Reuther believed in Swedish-style social democracy and societal change through nonviolent civil disobedience.
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Walter Reuther cofounded the AFL-CIO in 1955 with George Meany.
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Walter Reuther survived two attempted assassinations, including one at home where he was struck by a 12-gauge shotgun blast fired through his kitchen window.
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Walter Reuther was the fourth and longest serving president of the UAW, serving from 1946 until his death in 1970.
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Walter Reuther was instrumental in spearheading the creation of the Peace Corps and in marshaling support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare and Medicaid, and the Fair Housing Act.
8.
Walter Reuther met weekly in 1964 and 1965 with President Lyndon B Johnson at the White House to discuss policies and legislation for the Great Society and War on Poverty.
9.
When King and others including children were jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, and King authored his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, Walter Reuther arranged $160,000 for the protestors' release.
10.
Walter Reuther helped organize and finance the March on Washington on August 28,1963, delivering remarks from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial shortly before King gave his historic "I Have a Dream" speech on the National Mall.
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Walter Reuther served on the board of directors for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and was one of the founders of Americans for Democratic Action.
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Walter Reuther was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
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Walter Reuther was born on September 1,1907, in Wheeling, West Virginia, to Anna and Valentine Walter Reuther, who were German-Americans.
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Walter Reuther's father Valentine was a horse-drawn beer wagon driver and Socialist union organizer who at age 11 had emigrated from Germany.
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Walter Reuther was one of five children, oldest to youngest: Ted, Walter Reuther, Roy, Victor, Christine.
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When Valentine was partially blinded by an exploding bottle, Walter Reuther began doing odd jobs to bring in family income at the age of nine.
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Walter Reuther later dropped out of high school during his junior year and worked in a local factory to help support the family.
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Walter Reuther learned firsthand about inadequate worker safety when a 400 pound die that he and three other men were lifting fell and severed his big toe.
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From an early age, the Walter Reuther boys received lessons on racism.
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In 1927, at the age of 19, Walter Reuther left Wheeling for Detroit and argued himself into an expert tool and die maker job at Ford Motor Company that required 25 years experience.
21.
Walter Reuther finished high school while working at Ford and enrolled at Detroit City College, which is today known as Wayne State University.
22.
Walter Reuther frequently wrote letters to the Moscow Daily News criticizing the many inefficiencies associated with how the communists operated the plants.
23.
Walter Reuther did cooperate with the Communists in the mid 1930s; this was the period of the Popular Front, and the Communist Party agreed with him on internal issues of the UAW; but his associations were with anti-Stalinist Socialists.
24.
Walter Reuther remained active in the Socialist Party and in 1937 failed in his attempt to be elected to the Detroit City Council when the AFL and blacks opposed his CIO ticket.
25.
In solidarity with the Flint strikers, Walter Reuther led a strike at Detroit's Fleetwood Plant, where bodies were made for GM's luxury vehicle, the Cadillac.
26.
In 1950, Walter Reuther negotiated and signed with Charlie Wilson, chief executive officer of General Motors, the Treaty of Detroit, an historic five-year labor contract that, in exchange for a commitment not to strike, gave rank-and-file workers better wages, health care, and pensions.
27.
Barely a month after the Chrysler signing, Walter Reuther got permission from the City of Dearborn to pass out handbills titled, "Unionism, not Fordism" on public property at Gate Four of the giant Ford River Rouge Complex.
28.
Walter Reuther was instantly surrounded by at least a dozen men, knocked to the ground, kicked and punched in the head and body, picked up 4 feet parallel to the ground then slammed to the concrete repeatedly, then thrown and kicked down 3 flights of stairs.
29.
Walter Reuther said, during a national radio address on December 28,1940:.
30.
On March 27,1946, Reuther won the election and became the president of the UAW in a very close race, defeating incumbent UAW president R J Thomas by a mere 124 votes, out of almost 9,000 cast.
31.
Walter Reuther never made an annual salary of more than $31,000.
32.
Walter Reuther became president of the CIO in 1952 until its merger with the AFL in 1955, and continued as head of the UAW until his death in 1970.
33.
In 1959, at the request of the Department of State, Walter Reuther met with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who was visiting the US They discussed, among other things, capitalism versus communism, organized labor, and US-Russia relations.
34.
Walter Reuther employed a strategy called "pattern bargaining" against the Big Three automobile manufacturers, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Chrysler.
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Walter Reuther employed pattern bargaining to leverage competition among automobile manufacturers, maximize the influence of labor, and reduce the frequency of costly strikes.
36.
In 1950, Walter Reuther proposed, in an article titled, "A Proposal for a Total Peace Offensive," that the United States establish a voluntary agency for young Americans to be sent around the world to fulfill humanitarian and development objectives.
37.
Subsequently, throughout the 1950s, Walter Reuther gave speeches to the following effect:.
38.
Walter Reuther was a strong supporter of the Civil Rights Movement.
39.
Walter Reuther helped organize and finance the March on Washington on August 28,1963, delivering remarks from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial shortly before King gave his historic "I Have a Dream" speech.
40.
Walter Reuther served on the board of directors for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
41.
Walter Reuther mobilized support for the protest and donated office space at the UAW's headquarters Solidarity House for Martin Luther King, Jr.
42.
Walter Reuther believed the Lincoln Memorial would be less threatening to Congress and the occasion would be more appropriate underneath the gaze of Abraham Lincoln's statue.
43.
The committee, notably Rustin, agreed to move the site on the condition that Walter Reuther pay for a $19,000 sound system so that everyone on the National Mall could hear the speakers and musicians.
44.
Walter Reuther was the most prominent white organizer scheduled to speak.
45.
On March 9,1965, two days after Bloody Sunday, where civil rights marchers were beaten by state police at the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, Walter Reuther sent a telegram to President Johnson, reading in part:.
46.
Walter Reuther visited Chavez many times, including once during Chavez's hunger strike.
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Walter Reuther sought to build an environmental movement made up of all classes of society to address social, ecological, aesthetic, and resource-conservation issues.
48.
Walter Reuther made the first donation to support the first Earth Day in 1970 in the amount of $2,000.
49.
Walter Reuther supported the establishment of Redwood National Park, writing President Johnson in 1966:.
50.
President Johnson wrote Walter Reuther back, stating that his administration would establish Redwood National Park come hell or high water.
51.
In 1957, during a speech before the annual convention of the NAACP, Walter Reuther coined the United States Senate "the graveyard of civil rights legislation," and called for the abolishment of the body's filibuster.
52.
At the trial, the defense argued that the Walter Reuther staged the entire event as a publicity stunt.
53.
Walter Reuther had been subjected earlier to two attempted assassinations and a similar near-crash in a small plane in 1969.
54.
Walter Reuther's funeral was held on May 15,1970, at Ford Auditorium in Detroit, Michigan.
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Walter Reuther was to black people, the most widely known and respected white labor leader in the nation.
56.
Walter Reuther was there when the storm clouds were thick.
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Walter Reuther was a big man, so of course he had enemies and detractors.
58.
Walter Reuther had the courage to be with the minority when it was right.
59.
Walter Reuther was fighting the fight of the whole world.
60.
Walter and May Reuther were married on March 13,1936, after meeting on a streetcar in Detroit only six weeks earlier.
61.
Walter Reuther neither smoked nor drank alcohol because he felt it sapped a person's vitality.
62.
Walter Reuther was a very easy person to work with and be with.
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Walter Reuther had a good sense of humor and could laugh at himself.
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Walter Reuther was an expert woodworker and built much of the furniture for their home with his own hands.
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Walter Reuther soon gave up her teaching career to become Walter's full-time secretary, earning $15 per week.
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Walter Reuther was active in many charities and programs to uplift the community.
67.
Walter Reuther hosted Eleanor Roosevelt at their Paint Creek home.
68.
Walter Reuther served as president of the PTA at their daughter's school.
69.
Walter Reuther was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.