Walter Reuther

Walter Philip Reuther (September 1, 1907 – May 9, 1970) was an American leader of organized labor and civil rights activist who built the United Automobile Workers (UAW) into one of the most progressive labor unions in American history.

He saw labor movements not as narrow special interest groups but as instruments to advance social justice and human rights in democratic societies.

He leveraged the UAW's resources and influence to advocate for workers' rights, civil rights, women's rights, universal health care, public education, affordable housing, environmental stewardship and nuclear nonproliferation around the world.

He believed in Swedish-style social democracy and societal change through nonviolent civil disobedience.

Reuther was born on September 1, 1907, in Wheeling, West Virginia, to Anna (née Stocker) and Valentine Reuther, who were German-Americans.

His father Valentine was a horse-drawn beer wagon driver and Socialist union organizer who at age 11 had emigrated from Germany.

Walter was one of five children, oldest to youngest: Ted, Walter, Roy, Victor, Christine.

Valentine would facilitate debates every Sunday for his sons, training them to think on their feet about social issues of the day such as yellow journalism, child labor, women's suffrage, and civil rights.

Reuther later recalled, "At my father's knee we learned the philosophy of trade unionism. We got the struggles, the hopes and the aspirations of working people every day."

As a child, he and Victor accompanied their father on a visit to a jail to meet Eugene V. Debs, who was being incarcerated for his pacifism during World War I.

The Reuthers were frugal and learned not to waste.

To save money, Walter's mother Anna would make underwear for her sons out of used flour sacks.

When Valentine was partially blinded by an exploding bottle, Walter began doing odd jobs to bring in family income at the age of nine.

He later dropped out of high school during his junior year and worked in a local factory to help support the family.

He 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.

From an early age, the Reuther boys received lessons on racism.

One day they saw local boys throwing rocks at black people being transported north through their hometown in open railways cars.

Their father gave them a stern warning to never treat another human being like that.

The Reuther boys never forgot that lesson, spending the rest of their lives fighting for racial and economic equality for all people.

In 1927, at the age of 19, 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.

The foreman was baffled that at his young age he could read blueprints and dies, becoming one of the highest paid mechanics in the factory.

He finished high school while working at Ford and enrolled at Detroit City College, which is today known as Wayne State University.

He was the fourth and longest serving president of the UAW, serving from 1946 until his death in 1970.

As the leader of five million autoworkers, including retirees and their families, Reuther was influential inside the Democratic Party.

He cofounded the AFL-CIO in 1955 with George Meany.

He survived two attempted assassinations, including one at home where he was struck by a 12-gauge shotgun blast fired through his kitchen window.

The Republican Party was wary of Reuther, leading presidential candidate Richard Nixon to say about John F. Kennedy during the 1960 election, "I can think of nothing so detrimental to this nation than for any President to owe his election to, and therefore be a captive of, a political boss like Walter Reuther."

Conservative politician Barry Goldwater declared that Reuther "was more dangerous to our country than Sputnik or anything Soviet Russia might do."

A powerful ally of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, Reuther marched with King in Detroit, Selma, Birmingham, Montgomery, and Jackson.

When King and others including children were jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, and King authored his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, Reuther arranged $160,000 for the protestors' release.

Following the Bay of Pigs in 1961, President John F. Kennedy sent Reuther to Cuba to negotiate a prisoner exchange with Fidel Castro.

He also 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.

An early supporter of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, he asked Robert F. Kennedy to visit and support Chavez.

He served on the board of directors for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and was one of the founders of Americans for Democratic Action.

He 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.

He 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.

A lifetime environmentalist, Reuther played a critical role in funding and organizing the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970.

According to Denis Hayes, the principal national organizer of the first Earth Day, "Without the UAW, the first Earth Day would have likely flopped!"

He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995 by President Bill Clinton, who remarked at the ceremony, "Walter Reuther was an American visionary so far ahead of his times that although he died a quarter of a century ago, our Nation has yet to catch up to his dreams."

Reuther was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.