I'm really excited to talk to you about your dad, and the work that you're doing to preserve, you know, his archives and his legacy.

But, I figure we probably oughta start with just a simple recitation of who your dad was, what he did, and why he's so important, not just to the legacy of labor here in the city of Detroit, but especially to the legacy of civil rights.

He really was something else.

>>Well you know, and my dad, much like me, was not a self promoter.

You know, he was a race man, and in that generation, as you know, 'cause your family's a part of that.

These are people who deferred their own aspirations for future generations to experience what they never had an opportunity to.

So it wasn't about them getting the job.

It was about opening the door, making certain other folks came in.

But I think Willie Felder opened my eyes to who my dad was at his hundredth birthday celebration.

Told me he was in Birmingham, Alabama, and Dr.

A.G.

Gatz, who was a millionaire invited my dad down.

And my dad brought Thurgood Marshall with him.

And they were having a meeting, because these Black veterans who had come back from the war were being discriminated against, not able to get the veterans loans.

And so he said, when my dad walked in the room, everybody knew who he was, and knew that things were about to get started now.

So my dad's history is this.

He by the way, was vice president of the Negro American Labor Council with A. Philip Randolph.

He and Bayard Rustin served in that same capacity.

Both of them were the staff organizers of the March on Washington for jobs in the war industry.

And of course of the first person to bring Dr.

King to the Detroit.

what people don't understand is the success of the Civil Rights movement, because you have Black labor organizers.

Also one tidbit is in his archives, is that I discovered that he was the first person that they asked to be mayor, to run as a Black mayor.

And my dad loathed politics.

(Stephen laughing) So it's very interesting that my daughter would become president of the council.

But one good example, five plus one.

They went down and met with Mary Ann and Van Antwerp, because of police brutality.

The Big Four and all those things.

And if you read B.J.

Whitit's book, you know that they brought the Klan here, and Charles Bowles almost won the mayor's race in the '20s to discourage the growth of the Black population.

And the police took on that mantra.

And when they went down and met about what was happening, they said, that's what we do to (beep), it's in my dad's archives.

And what did they do?

My dad came back to TULC, had a big meeting, and organized a slate called Five Plus One.

The one was Jerry Kavanaugh and five liberal Counsels and they won, they beat the UAW, they beat the White power structure.

And that was a powerful moment in the history of TULC, and the Black Trade Union, of which my dad was a part of.

>>And, you know, just hearing you talk about those things, those events, those moments in history, you can connect so much of what we see and experience today in Detroit to those moments.

That things are the way they are for us, in particular in the city, because of those things that your dad and those other folks did.

>>Yeah so what's interesting is the same person who did Daisy Bates, and Robert Kennedy, and Jackie Robinson's archives.

We spent $90,000 digitizing this, and kind of tongue in cheek, the White guy says, you know, this is one of the best collections.

He didn't wanna say period, you know.

But really, my dad had already annotated everything.

I mean, back to a pamphlet he wrote, with a pseudonym called "Unite Regardless," encouraging Black workers to join the UAW, of which my grandfather didn't until after it was accepted by the you know, was a collective bargaining agent.

My grandfather thought that it before was the second coming of Jesus Christ.

But my dad saved absolutely everything.

And what's important to me about all of this, is that if I, you know, you have family members, for example, that were in the trade union movement, right?

You can literally pull up people's names, people that folks, everyday people don't know, that like Anne Jones or, you know, George Cherry, I mean, and you will find information that my dad has.

I know I'm running my mouth, but I'm so excited about this.

But one of the most important pieces that I've read recently, and by the way, my dad took me where I was able to connect the dots was when he came home from King's funeral, having walked behind his coffin, and African American trade unionists were absent from Memphis.

And some of them were absent from the funeral, because the White unions had turned against Dr.

King because of his stance on the Vietnam war.

And this five page letter, my dad wrote to the Black Trade Unions, asked a question, when are we even as a part of White institutions, not gonna be afraid to stick up for own interest.

They stick up for theirs, and make us bow to theirs.

When are we gonna make them bow to ours?

>>Wow, so I know you're doing this work now, trying to preserve his legacy and his archive, but I want you to talk just a little about growing up with your dad.

I mean, this was your dad.

He wasn't just a civil rights activist.

You know, this was the man who raised you.

Talk about the things that you believe, and the things you work on today that were influenced by growing up in a household with him.

>>Well, you know, my dad's favorite question he asked in any meeting that he was organizing for an issue, was "What's the difference between a pile of bricks, and a cathedral?"

And no one would get it.

He'd always say "Organization, the bricks are organized."

So one of the things I got out was by the way this humongous movement.

I mean, the social upheaval and all that you saw happen.

I was there in that cauldron, and that crucible.

I mean, I watched Dr.

King speak.

I went to Walter Reuther's funeral.

I mean, these are things that I experienced, and I ask myself, unlike today, when people would TikTok it and, and Instagram it, and Facebook it, I asked myself, why was I providentially placed in this era to be exposed to these people, and to know them by name, and you know sleep in King's house, and all that.

And I came away with it, that I was to carry on the legacy of selfless service.

My dad said the true measure of a person's life is not how much they have, but how much they give.

And I really think that came home in '63, when we went to celebrate the hundredth anniversary, Emancipation Proclamation, and Lyndon Johnson received my dad and my sisters and I at his house.

And my sister swam in his swimming pool, as my dad met with Lyndon Johnson.

And I didn't come out of there thinking, oh my God, I'm somebody, you know, look at us.

I came away from there knowing that my dad was a pivotal person in the movement for Civil Rights, and that this blue collar worker, he was a blue collar worker.

My grandfather had a fourth grade education, came out of the foundry at Ford, organized workers.

And they called him the Champion of the Working Poor, and Blue Collar workers, that took him into Lyndon Johnson's front room, and was known by him, and by name.

And by the way, I got an interesting story about Lyndon Johnson.

It's in his archives, you wanna hear it?

And it is time, because Aidan Kohn wrote this and told me it's in the archives, that Lyndon Johnson called my dad.

He was the floor general at the convention, and asked my dad not to seat, the lady from Mississippi, what's her name?

Fannie Lou Hamer.

>>Oh, really?

>>And Aidan Kohn was standing next to him, and he told vice president or President Johnson that he would not seat those delegations who were delegates of Fannie Lou Hamer.

And, you know, I love Aidan Kohn, by the way.

You know, he contributed a lot of stuff to my dad's archives, and brought a lot of stuff together for me.

He's part of that Black Jewish coalition that began, you know, back in the '40s and '50s, that really desegregated the city.

>>So I think for anybody who's looking for an obvious sign of the power of your dad's legacy, of course, your daughter is now, you know a great symbol of that.

She's the president of the Detroit City Council.

But I also wonder if you look around the city and see other things that for you, are a reminder of all of the things that he did.

>>Well, I would be perfectly honest with you.

When I set out to do this collection, the only support I got was from my sister, LaVonne, who passed, who wrote a $50,000 check.

The rest of it, I had to raise, The UAW put in some money.

Some of their archives have been lost, and I'm working on an agreement with them.

But Dr.

Curtis Ivery at Wayne County Community College embraced this project, helped me raise the money, and actually spent money to have an architectural layout, and to build out for where this is gonna go.

So now Wayne State, you know, I've yielded it to Wayne State.

I wanted to be broader, because my dad was broader, and I knew the issues he had with Walter Reuther.

And when I talked to them, they knew they were issues.

So we've addressed those, but I'm excited.

And I think, you know, when I look around town, that community college, with that many young African Americans who get an opportunity to go to college and go on.

My wife, who grew up on East Side, went to Kettering, fatherless, you know, almost homeless as a teenager, went to that college.

And she now is practicing medicine in the city of Detroit.

So I think that's a powerful thing, because one of the things you know and I know, is what they always believed was that education was the great game changer.

>>Everything, it was everything to them, yeah.

So for just average people who might wanna access this, learn about your dad, see this legacy.

They can just go the Wayne State, to the Reuther building.

>>It's not up on the platform yet, it will be.

What's gonna happen is Wayne will house it.

It'll be shared with Wayne County Community College district where actual physical artifacts from the archives will be on display.

We're hiring a guy named Joseph Wilson, out of New Jersey, who was one of the foremost Black labor historians in the world, who you know, when I called him, he told me stuff about my dad.

And we're gonna be excited, because we're gonna be doing seminars.

And here's the real power of this.

The real power of this, that these rank and file people, Mickey Welch, and people like that, I grew up with.

You know, the Thomas', the Dillard's, will now have an opportunity for their lives to be opened up to others, so that people understand, It doesn't take a whole lot of folks.

Doesn't take grand folks.

It takes just committed folks.

And these blue collar rank and file people changed the history of this city, and this nation.

>>Now let's turn to the 2022 Kresge Eminent Artist.