November 15, 2022 • 33 mins
Midnight in Vehicle City by author Edward McClelland is a book that tells the story of Flint, Michigan, during the Great Recession and the struggles of its residents as they try to survive in a city that has been hit hard by the economic downturn. The story centers around autoworkers struggling to make ends meet and their challenges of working for General Motors Corporation in the 1930s. Those challenges included poor pay and working conditions.
The author does an excellent job of capturing the mood and atmosphere of Flint during this time, and the characters are well-developed and believable. The book is also well-researched and provides a lot of insight into the history and culture of Flint and the larger economic and political forces that have shaped the city.
Overall, Midnight in the Vehicle City is a compelling and poignant read that provides a unique perspective on the struggles of ordinary people in an extraordinary time. It is a powerful reminder of the resilience and determination of the human spirit. It is highly recommended for anyone interested in social and economic issues or the history of the Rust Belt.
Listen to a clip of a stirring archival speech by the late Walter P. Ruether, former President of the United Automobile Workers Union. Ruether's words hit a note, given today's struggle to protect democracy.
The conversation examines the impact the strike made on the culture of Flint, Michigan, and its people. Does the intensive local activism of 1937 that spurred the birth of the UAW still exist today in Flint?
Now that the 1937 sit-down strikers are gone, why does the labor movement still celebrate this strike? What did this historical confrontation between the UAW and General Motors accomplish? Did the famous strike help build the American middle class?
Please visit the author's website if you want more information about author Edward McClelland and to purchase his book Midnight in the Vehicle City or any of his other books.
- Watch Video: Babies and Banners: Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade (1979). Oscar-nominated documentary about the women who battled the police to help and support their striking husbands inside the GM auto factories of Flint, Michigan.
- Watch Video: The Flint Sit-Down Strike and White Shirt Day. A video about the history of the historic strike. The UAW produced it.
The song "1937" in the podcast introduction and outro was written by David O. Norris and Dan Hall and performed by Dan Hall and a local choir of UAW members. Many thanks to them and UAW Region 1-D for their assistance in producing this song.
The historical photographs included on the Radio Free Flint episodes page are courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USF34-9058-C]
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (01:08):
This is Arthur Bush, and you're listening to Radio
Free Flint.
Thank you for joining us today.
Today our episode Midnight inthe Vehicle City, the legacy of
Flint's Autoworkers, centersaround the 1937 sit-down strike
in the city of Flint.
The author, Edward McClellan, isfrom East Lansing, Michigan.
He joins us to talk about hisbook, Midnight in the Vehicle
(01:30):
City.
It's a good review of thehistory of the Flint sit-down
strike.
What might be the legacy of the1937 strike all these many years
later?
How it's continued to beremembered, and what it means
for the future of Flint.
Edward, welcome to Radio FreeFlint.
It's an honor to have you.
SPEAKER_03 (01:47):
Why did you write this book?
I decided it would be moreinteresting, maybe more exciting
to just write about oneincident, and I settled on the
sit-down strike.
Partly because one of our oldfamily friends, a guy named
Everett Ketchum, who's mentionedin the book, he was a sit-down
striker, and he was one of thelast, if not the last, survivors
of the sit-down strike.
(02:08):
He died in 2013 at age 98.
To me, he just exemplified thevictories of the strikers.
You know, he started out as anapprentice making 25 cents an
hour, and he retired as a tooland die maker in the 70s,
making, you know,$27 an hour.
And he had that GM lifetimehealth care, which is probably
one reason he lived so long.
(02:28):
You know, he was certainly aninspiration for writing the
book.
I mean, I really benefited fromthe fact that in the late 70s
and early 80s, a guy at U of MFlint named Neil Leighton, he
conducted oral histories withthe sit-down strikers.
But they had dozens and dozensof interviews.
Some of them are online at the Uof M.
Flint uh Labor History Project,but a lot of them were just uh
(02:51):
in boxes at the ThompsonLibrary, I think at the Genesee
County Historical Collection.
So I spent a couple days justyou know making making
photocopies that allowed me totell, tell the story uh of the
strike, you know, from the youknow, the voice of the striker.
And I think one reason it's it'ssuch a great story is you know,
(03:12):
you got uh not only do you havethose people, but I mean it was
a story that involved people upto the very highest levels uh of
society.
It involved you know, thegovernor of Michigan, Frank
Murphy, and the president of theUnited States, uh Franklin D.
Roosevelt.
He even got involved.
He had to call a GM executive toconvince them to negotiate with
the sit-down strikers.
GM's place in the corporatehierarchy or the American
(03:35):
hierarchy was at that time,maybe still is so grand that
they were not going to takeorders from anybody but the
president himself.
Roosevelt had to call WilliamKnudson.
SPEAKER_02 (03:45):
Well, they had they had C.S.
Mock that lived in Flint, whosat on the board of General
Motors.
SPEAKER_03 (03:51):
Right, right.
I don't think he was really.
I I I didn't write anythingabout him.
I don't know how much he wasinvolved in this or if he was
involved at all.
SPEAKER_02 (03:59):
But I mean, obviously I don't I've been
trying to find that out.
SPEAKER_03 (04:03):
Yeah, obviously, you know, Flint is the hometown of
General Motors, where GeneralMotors was founded.
It was where William Durantlived and where he put all the
companies together that made upGM.
SPEAKER_02 (04:14):
The research that you did was from these from
these interviews that youconducted.
Some are actually oral, so youcan listen to them on the
internet, and some you say youread.
SPEAKER_03 (04:26):
I think I read all of them.
As I said, all the strikers havepassed away, and that was
actually another reason I thinkI wrote the book, is that
somebody has to keep telling thestory because none of the
participants are with us to tellit anymore.
And of course, you know, I useda lot of accounts from the Flint
Journal.
Frances Perkins left a greatoral history.
(04:47):
She was the first woman in apresidential cabinet, and she
was very instrumental in helpingto settle the strike, her
argument with Alfred P.
Sloan.
That's in her oral history.
He backed out on an agreement inan agreement to negotiate with
the strikers, and she called himuh she called him a rotter and
told him he was gonna choke onhis money and go to hell.
He said, You can't talk to me,I'm Alfred Sloan.
(05:08):
I've got$70 million and I madeit all myself.
SPEAKER_02 (05:10):
Well, that's not exactly true.
It sounded good at the moment,probably to him, but I don't
think it it landed with mucheffect to the audience he was
speaking to.
SPEAKER_03 (05:23):
I went to New York, to Columbia University, to look
at the Francis Perkins papers.
SPEAKER_02 (05:28):
There were also three brothers involved in this.
SPEAKER_03 (05:31):
Right.
The Ruther.
Mostly two.
Uh it was it was Victor and RoyRuther.
Walter Ruther was busy inDetroit.
He had his own strike going on.
SPEAKER_02 (05:40):
One of the places it was was Fisher Body No.
Yeah, which is uh iconichistoric auto factory that
appeared in Roger and Me, and itshowed the balling, I guess, is
or felling of the tower, of thewater tower that was symbolic of
the plant going away.
Right.
The workers gathered in anotherplace.
(06:01):
Tell us where that was.
SPEAKER_03 (06:03):
Uh, just had a storefront across the street,
uh, where they were gathered formeetings, and there was a red
light above the door to let themknow.
They called it, I think, theflicker or the flasher to let
them know that there was ameeting going on.
And that's that's where BobTravis, who was the organizer in
charge of the strike, that'swhere he declared that this was
(06:23):
the this was the time they weregonna go on strike because
they'd wanted to delay it untilafter the new year when Frank
Murphy was sworn in.
Yeah, he was the New Dealgovernor of Michigan, and they
thought he was gonna besympathetic to the Union cause.
But uh a couple days before uhthe new year, first of all, uh
another sit-down strike kind ofbroke out in Cleveland, and then
uh they were hearing that GM wasgonna move the dyes from Flint
(06:47):
to Grand Rapids, and you know,Fisher One contained dyes that
stamped out body parts that wereused in GM cars all over the
country.
So if they could capture thatplant and control those dyes,
then they could stop GMproduction everywhere, and the
company would have to negotiatewith and I think that storefront
is still there.
I mean, there is a storefrontright across the street.
I think that building is stillthere.
SPEAKER_02 (07:07):
There was also a building called the Pengalley
Building, which was downtown.
Right.
And there's a road that's justthree blocks from this factory
called Pengalley Road.
What do you know about thePengalley building?
SPEAKER_03 (07:19):
An office building been demolished since then, and
that's where that's where theunion had its headquarters.
You know, they they'd haverallies there, they'd have
meetings there, and I think thestrike kitchen was there, they
would put on plays there, showmovies there.
So it was just the nerve centerof the whole strike operation.
SPEAKER_02 (07:37):
Yeah, now they had uh a women's brigade, right?
SPEAKER_03 (07:40):
Right.
Well, well, it started out as uhyou know ladies' auxiliary, and
uh there was a woman namedJanorah Johnson, and I think uh
uh some people in Flint thinkthere should be a statue of her
downtown, like there's a statueof you know Buick and Durant and
all those guys.
SPEAKER_02 (07:56):
Well, they're making progress.
They have one now, a Rosiederivator, so they're working
their way to Janorah Johnson,yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (08:03):
So she was someone who she was married to uh an
auto worker, a striker namedKermit Johnson uh at that time.
And you know, she was someonewho'd been involved in socialist
causes.
She invited Norman Thomas tospeak in Flint, and her family
read all the socialistpublications.
And when she went down to thePengelli building to volunteer,
they said, Well, we can put youto work in the kitchen.
(08:25):
And she didn't want to work inthe kitchen.
So she organized a picket line,and she had her two-year-old son
carrying a sign that said, Mydaddy strikes for us little
types.
And then uh after the battle ofthe running bulls, when the
police attacked Fisher 2, sheencouraged women to, you know,
run down to the plant andinterpose their bodies between
(08:46):
the strikers and the and thepolice and protect their men.
And so she thought that thewomen ought to play, you know,
there was as much at stake forthe women as the men, so the
women ought to play asignificant role in the strike
as the men did.
I mean, there were women workingin Fisher One and the cut and
sew department, but they weretold to leave as soon as the
sit-down strike broke outbecause you know the union
(09:08):
didn't want any rumors aboutwhat might be going on between
men and women in the plant.
That would have just underminedsupport from the home front.
So she started the next day, shestarted Women's Emergency
Brigade.
She was the captain and theywore red berets and they wore
red armbands, and they allcarried billy clubs underneath
their coats.
And when the union tried to takeover Chevy 4, which was an
(09:30):
engine plant, and that wouldthat was really going to shut
down the whole company.
And there was a diversionarybattle at Chevy 9, and the plant
police fired tear gas, and sothe women's emergency brigade
broke all the windows to let thetear gas escape.
So they they went into action.
The next day, the Flint Journal,I think, was reporting that
crazed women had broken windowsfor no apparent reason.
SPEAKER_02 (09:51):
Well, that wasn't true.
It wouldn't be the first timethey got it wrong.
I want to ask you some questionshere.
First one is what effect do youthink this strike had on Flint?
SPEAKER_03 (10:02):
Well, I think that for you know a long time they
said there was a more of aspirit of Union militancy in
Flint than other cities.
I think I'd read that strikestook longer to settle in Flint
than they did elsewhere.
But certainly it it had aneffect on Flint.
You know, as late as 1980, Flintwas the city with the highest
(10:23):
wages for workers under youngworkers in America.
And that was because you went towork in the in the shop and you
you went to work at the unionwage.
So Flint had several prosperousdecades following the sit-down
strike as a result of thesit-down strike.
SPEAKER_02 (10:40):
The UAW uh was not a socialist organization.
SPEAKER_03 (10:44):
No, but there was some of the organizers were
socialists and even communists.
Uh Wyndham Mortimer, who was thefirst organizer sent to Flint to
sort of organize uh put togethera union, he was a communist, and
so was Bob Travis, who was theuh sort of the general and the
architect of the sit-downstrike.
SPEAKER_02 (11:02):
So the the history of socialism in Flint dates back
quite a few years.
SPEAKER_03 (11:07):
Well, yeah, I think Flint had a socialist mayor in
the in the early 20th century,and then Mott ran against him.
The establishment, you know,decided to get its act together,
and they ran Mott against him,and Mott was elected mayor.
SPEAKER_02 (11:21):
At 1911, Thomas Menton was elected along with
three aldermen to the Flint CityCouncil, and that's they were
running on wages, hours, andworking conditions.
SPEAKER_03 (11:31):
There there were some tough times going on.
A lot of workers have been laidoff.
SPEAKER_02 (11:35):
There were people living in tar paper shacks in
the shadow of Buick.
SPEAKER_03 (11:39):
Right, right.
I mean, they couldn't buildenough housing for all the
workers who were you knowstreaming into Flint for these
good jobs.
SPEAKER_02 (11:46):
Right.
Well, the socialist idea, let'sf let's follow that for just a
second here.
You're quite knowledgeable aboutlabor history.
The socialist had a whole agendaand it involved a lot more than
work.
Part of it had to do with thefact that there were all these
men.
Flint went from like six orseven thousand people to ninety
thousand people in less than uhten years.
(12:08):
In fact, at one point it was thefastest growing city in America.
Some of their issues had to dowith they couldn't take a bath
because there wasn't any placeto get warm water.
They didn't have anyrecreational activities and so
on.
Industrialists at the time, theyweren't too keen on the idea
that these people were trying toend child labor because that was
(12:30):
one of their platforms.
Right.
They were unkeen on a wholebunch of stuff, but that was one
of them.
But in the end, the workers ofFlint voted for the guy that
that had just sold his companyto General Motors.
He he had to be one of thelargest shareholders at General
Motors at the time.
SPEAKER_03 (12:46):
They they gave him a 5% share to uh entice him to
move his company to Flint, andof course, you know, that ended
up being worth multi,multi-millions of of dollars.
SPEAKER_02 (12:58):
Once he got to Flint, he initially sold 49% of
his company, and he then afterhe got elected mayor, he sold
the rest.
SPEAKER_03 (13:06):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (13:07):
They didn't like the union.
I mean, they didn't like whatthey saw was the beginning of
organized labor in Flint.
SPEAKER_03 (13:14):
Right.
Well most industrialist don't.
SPEAKER_02 (13:17):
And and that theme has continued to this day.
It's not really any different,it seemed like.
In those days, Charles Mott wasmore in their face.
And they voted for him untilthey didn't, which was only a
few years later, 1915 was whenhe was defeated.
You said you wrote the bookbecause you think you think the
(13:38):
story needs to keep being told.
Yeah.
Do you think that's because it'snot taught in school, or why why
isn't it being told?
SPEAKER_03 (13:47):
Well, I don't think it's very well known outside of
Michigan or even outside ofFlint.
You know, it's the foundation ofthe of the United Auto Workers,
which was the flagship union uhin the United States.
I mean, this was the union thatset the wages and set the
benefits and set the terms forindustrial workers uh all over
the country.
And it was sort of the key tothis great 20th century middle
(14:10):
class that we had.
You know, it was interesting tome that you know, these workers
who were trying to start a unionat Amazon and Alabama, uh, that
how similar their concerns wereto the concerns of the sit-down
strikers.
You know, they wanted a morehumane pace of labor, uh, you
know, they didn't want to havepeeing in bottles on the job,
(14:31):
they wanted more job security,they wanted more say in the
workforce.
And of course, that effortfailed.
What I thought, and and I readan interesting article by a guy
named Harold Meyerson uh abouthow today the unions are
becoming a white-collarmovement.
You know, they're always thoughtof as a blue-collar movement.
But workers who feel likethey're replaceable, who feel
(14:52):
like the company can just moveout of town or pull the rug out
from out of them if they start aunion, they're more they're more
reluctant to unionize than youknow professionals who either
are not as replaceable or feellike they can find uh jobs
somewhere else.
So it's a so it's a strangemoment in the in the history of
the of the labor movement.
SPEAKER_02 (15:11):
And one of the things that was the legacy of
the sit-down strikes in Flintwas that they celebrated a
strike.
SPEAKER_03 (15:19):
Right.
White shirt, white shirt day.
I went to a couple white shirtdays.
SPEAKER_02 (15:23):
Okay.
Celebrating a strike is an oddthing.
I mean, most people don't wantto strike.
That is the most union peopleI've ever met in my life, they
prefer not to have strikes.
Right.
Why should the union celebratethis strike?
SPEAKER_03 (15:36):
I guess for the uh same reason that Christians
celebrate Christmas.
This is where it all began.
Uh this is where it all beganfor the UAW.
SPEAKER_02 (15:44):
That's very good.
Why a white shirt?
SPEAKER_03 (15:48):
Uh they wanted to show that they were that they
were as good as the asmanagement.
Management, you know, the theforeman wore white shirts, so
then all the workers wore.
SPEAKER_02 (15:56):
Let me understand what you're saying.
They have an event in memory ofthe strikers and all these
heroic people, and then they andthen they all wear white shirts
to this event.
Is that it?
SPEAKER_03 (16:08):
Right.
Well, uh, but they wouldoriginally they would wear white
shirts to work, and and I thinkthey still do in the plant.
SPEAKER_02 (16:15):
The day of the strike.
SPEAKER_03 (16:16):
On February 11th, the day the strike was settled.
SPEAKER_02 (16:19):
And is this just in Flint or all over the place?
SPEAKER_03 (16:22):
I think they wanted to make it a nationwide thing,
but it's mainly in Flint.
I've I mean I never really heardabout it being celebrated in
Lansing.
Uh, but every year it's at adifferent union hall uh in the
in Flint or in the Flint area.
And you know, they havepoliticians come there and uh
union officials, people comemake speeches.
They hold hands and singsolidarity forever.
(16:42):
And then they have women dressedup uh like when the women in the
women's emergency brigade, andthey're serving bean soup and
apples and bread, uh, which iswhat the strikers were eating in
the plants.
They want to say that this is aremembrance of the sacrifices
that they're the sit-downstrikers made for the prosperity
they have.
SPEAKER_02 (17:00):
Do you think that traditional carry on pretty
well?
SPEAKER_03 (17:03):
Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, I went to a couple in
recent years and they mentionedthat these there were no
original strikers or members ofthe women's emergency brigade
left anymore.
I mean, I guess as long as carsare made in Flint, however much
longer that is, uh I think itwill carry on.
SPEAKER_02 (17:18):
Well, they don't make cars in Flint anymore, they
just make trucks.
SPEAKER_03 (17:21):
Okay, well, as long as vehicles are made in the
vehicle in the vehicle city.
SPEAKER_02 (17:25):
What do you hope is the impact of your book?
SPEAKER_03 (17:28):
Uh, you know, I want people to see what can happen
when when workers standtogether, unite, and I want to I
want to show that uh when thegovernment supports workers,
then then they succeed.
I mean, it wouldn't havesucceeded without the support of
Frank Murphy and Francis Perkinsand Franklin D.
Roosevelt.
You know, Frank Murphy couldhave sent in the National Guard
(17:48):
to evict the strikers from theplants as the as the court or as
the court had ordered them, butinstead he sent the National
Guard as a peacekeeping fort.
He said, you know, get in thestreets, get between surround
the plants, get between thepolice and the strikers, and
make sure there's there's nomore violence.
You know, President Bidendelivered a speech that some
people thought was the mostpro-union speech they'd ever
heard from in America.
(18:09):
He supported the workers in inAlabama and said every worker
has a right to belong to aunion.
You know, as I said before, someworkers just have so much
economic anxiety now, they'reafraid to join a union.
And I want Flint to be known forsomething other than the water
crisis.
How about that?
SPEAKER_02 (18:25):
The strike was one thing that's known for that that
many people who were trying tomarket the city thought was a
negative.
How would you respond to that?
They said, why do we celebrate astrike and put it on our
expressway?
Why why do we celebrate thestrike?
And that is supposedly a messageto business don't come here.
SPEAKER_03 (18:43):
As a result of the strike, there was more of a a
spirit of labor militancy inFlint than in other cities.
And some people in the 80s, theythought that that was the reason
that the GM was pulling out ofFlint.
They thought that they weregetting revenge for the sit-down
strike 50 years later.
You know, the the decline of Gof GM employment in Flint is
(19:04):
pretty much at the same level asit is everywhere else in the
country.
SPEAKER_02 (19:07):
Let me ask you about Flint as we see it today.
You said you spent a lot of timein Flint, that's right.
SPEAKER_03 (19:14):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (19:14):
What was it about your visit to Flint while you
were writing this book that thatsurprised you about the city?
SPEAKER_03 (19:20):
Well, you know, I just thought it was fascinating,
sort of the progression that theindustries followed.
You know, Flint started out as alogging town, lumbering town.
When the lumber was played out,they had this this wood, and
okay, what are we going to dowith this?
Well, we'll make carriages.
Uh, and so then Flint was thenumber one carriage
manufacturer.
And then around 1900, they sawthat uh, you know, these guys
(19:42):
like Ari Olds and Henry Fordwere putting motors on
carriages.
And they said, well, we need todo that, we need to get with the
20th century.
So then Flint became anautomaking town.
So I I was fascinated by thatfor sure.
SPEAKER_02 (19:55):
The Flint people, some of them like to call
themselves Flintstones.
SPEAKER_03 (20:00):
Right.
I thought, well, that waspopularized by uh Mateen Cleves
and Morris Peterson and CharlieBell when they played for the
Michigan State Spartans, theycalled themselves the the
Flintstones.
And I I before that I'd heardFlint Oid, but I think
Flintstones is the one that'sthat's really caught on and been
embraced locally.
Do you do you call yourself aFlintstone?
SPEAKER_02 (20:22):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03 (20:23):
Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:24):
Uh what does that represent to you?
But what's it mean to be aFlintstone?
SPEAKER_03 (20:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:30):
I mean it's more than a moniker, it's more than a
nickname.
It has it has more to do, Ithink, with something else.
What's that?
There's some theories about theFlintstone uh concept here that
I'm exploring.
And the theory is this they'retough, they're resilient, you
know, they have strength, uh,they're loyal.
(20:50):
Once they won the nationalchampionship, they were they
were one other thing, and theywere winners.
SPEAKER_03 (20:55):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (20:56):
The townspeople here began to identify with this,
this idea.
They they articulated whatpeople in Flint.
I mean, before that, people werelooking for Texas, you know,
they weren't they weren'ttalking about how wonderful
Flint was.
So now when you talk to theseFlintstones, many of them will
say they believe that thosequalities, those those
(21:16):
character, the ethos of theirphilosophy and so on, that it's
embedded in the fabric of thecity.
And many feel that they they'veacquired those those things by
being part of Flint, by beingraised here, that that's what
you learn when you're little.
Okay.
How is that different than whatyou've observed in other
blue-collar cities that youwrote about in your works?
SPEAKER_03 (21:37):
I think you'll find it in other places.
I think you'd find it, say, in aplace like Youngstown, Ohio.
That's another blue-collar citythat's been through some tough
times.
I think you'd find it inCleveland.
You'd find it in Detroit.
So yeah, I think I think it is acommon thread in blue-collar
cities that endured tough timesduring the during the Rust Belt
era.
It makes a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_02 (21:58):
And you wrote this blue sky book, which I was
fascinated by.
You talk about an optimism inthat book.
SPEAKER_03 (22:04):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (22:04):
Can you explain what that is?
SPEAKER_03 (22:06):
Uh you know, I kind of meant the title as sort of a
play on words, you know, nothingbut blue skies.
That's what I think I got theidea from a guy in South
Chicago, and after the millclosed, he said, I looked up uh
one day and I saw a blue sky andI thought the world had ended
because there was no more smokecoming out of the chimneys.
It's the end of something, butit's also a blank slate.
(22:27):
Of course, you know, nothing butblue skies, that's a very
optimistic kind of song.
Build something new.
SPEAKER_02 (22:33):
There have been some studies that show that
de-industrialization in thesecities that we're making
reference to, that it gives riseto a certain optimism that may
be unrealistic.
SPEAKER_03 (22:46):
Sure.
SPEAKER_02 (22:46):
Have you heard of that?
SPEAKER_03 (22:48):
You know, I did see people who thought, you know,
they could build something brandnew, I guess, out of out of the
ashes, and I don't know howsuccessful uh it it always was.
I mean, I think there's someoptimism in Flint.
It's got a new farmers market.
That's something you know peopleare optimistic about.
SPEAKER_02 (23:06):
When I talk to these people on this podcast, many of
them tell me that they believethat Flint has a certain
resilience.
SPEAKER_03 (23:14):
Yeah.
I mean it it has to.
I mean, it's lost more than halfits population, I think, since
it's its peak.
I think you'd have to beresilient to stay in Flint, to
want to stay in Flint and towant to keep trying to build
something there.
SPEAKER_02 (23:26):
The history of the city is is such that they've
overcome a lot of uh ups anddowns.
And the automobile economy, bydefinition, is uh an economy
that is a roller coaster.
SPEAKER_03 (23:37):
Right, right.
I can't imagine what's gonnacome back.
No other uh industry wherethere's more value added than in
in making automobiles.
That's why it was so lucrativefor such a long time.
So I don't I don't know thatFlint's ever gonna find anything
to replace that.
It's hard to imagine Flint beingas prosperous, say, as it was in
the 60s and the 70s and the andthe 80s.
SPEAKER_02 (24:00):
What do you think that they did in babbling for
their town way back then?
SPEAKER_03 (24:04):
Yeah, they always say even today that it wasn't
about money, it was about youknow it was about dignity.
And I think that they theyestablished a lot of precedence
or things, things that workerstake for granted today.
You know, before the sit-downstrike, they would say that
there was no job security.
You had to bring food to yourforeman, or you have to you'd
have to paint his house or throwhim a party, and if you didn't,
(24:25):
he could just you know kick youout, and his brother-in-law
would be working in your placethe next day.
And you know, they really didn'tlike workers over 40 because
they couldn't keep up with thepace of the assembly line.
You know, after the sit-downstrike ended, the contracts at
layups were going to be byseniority, and that's something
you know we we take for grantedtoday, but that was something
(24:46):
that was not at all in place atGeneral Motors before the
sit-down strike.
SPEAKER_02 (24:49):
We still have General Motors in Flint, they
didn't leave.
We still have one of the mostsignificant factories in there,
a bag of tricks.
We make hot selling trucks.
Right.
And there are still 7,000workers there in those two
plants.
Is there something differenttoday about the workers than
there were in 1937?
SPEAKER_03 (25:08):
They're more prosperous.
I hope they're more they're moresatisfied with with their
working conditions uh than theywere back then, and uh even
today a direct result of whatthe sit-down strikers did, you
know, 85 years ago.
SPEAKER_02 (25:20):
Anything else?
Are they willing to fight forwhat they've got?
SPEAKER_03 (25:23):
I mean, I remember talking to a guy, he was a guy
in Lansing, and he'd beenparticipating in the 1970s
strike.
You know, that was when they gotthe you know the 30 and out.
He said, well, after that we hadeverything.
There was nothing more to fightfor.
I think maybe maybe they're morelikely to feel like that now
that they've got it all.
There was that strike a fewyears ago, and there was a
(25:44):
pretty significant strike a fewyears ago.
SPEAKER_02 (25:46):
You're talking about the strike at the metal fab that
shut down General Motors?
SPEAKER_03 (25:49):
Well, that was one.
I was thinking that was in 1998.
This was the one, I think it wasjust two or three years ago when
GM went on strike, the wholecompany.
SPEAKER_02 (25:57):
How is Flip Michigan so different than any of these
other places?
Janesville, Wisconsin was acompany town.
Yeah.
General Motors Company town.
And uh, but for us for somedemographic differences, it
probably was the same city.
Right.
In a different place.
Janesville, Wisconsin, they wenthome and waited until the people
(26:18):
in Flint sat down.
SPEAKER_03 (26:20):
Right.
Well, I mean, the the the wholeUAW uh uh hierarchy had just
decided that Flint was wherethat they wanted to, that Flint
was the key city.
Flint was the city they weretargeting because you know Flint
had the most GM plants, andFlint had those key GM plants
and had those key dyes and thosekey engines.
So if they could organize Flint,if they could shut down Flint,
then they could organize thewhole company.
(26:42):
So I think it's just a matter ofyou know having being so central
and so important to GeneralMotors is is why this happened
in in Flint.
SPEAKER_02 (26:50):
Let me get back to my original question.
So we have we have a whole bunchof places uh where General
Motors operates.
How is Flint different today orand then than other places?
SPEAKER_03 (27:01):
Because it it was so dependent on General Motors.
I mean, I think I read liketwo-thirds of the people in
Flint got a paycheck fromGeneral Motors one way or the
other.
You know, I'm from Lansing, andLansing uh, you know, had a
significant GM presence, but youknow, it's also the state
capital, and it also hadMichigan State University.
So the state employment was athree-legged stool, you know,
(27:22):
campus cars and capital.
But in Flint, it was aone-legged stool.
SPEAKER_02 (27:25):
You started out talking to me about the
willingness to fight by theseworkers, their willingness to
stand up and stand up for whatthey believe.
Is Flint different in thatrespect?
That it has a more uh intenselyuh activist uh mindset than
these other places?
SPEAKER_03 (27:44):
Can I read uh uh from a guy named Gordon Young
that it might have been he mighthave been on your show?
And I think he sums it up prettywell.
It's a it's a blurb he wrote.
Let's see.
Midnight in Vehicle Citycaptures the flint today through
the captivating story of thecity's past.
McClellan reveals the toughness,determination, and even
recklessness that fueled autoworkers and their families in
(28:04):
1936 as he took on a corporategiant, the military, and an
unsympathetic press.
If you ever wonder why currentFlint residents haven't given
up, this book is an engagingreminder that fighting seemingly
unwinnable battles is part ofthis city's DNA.
SPEAKER_02 (28:18):
Some experts that I've talked to in political
science have studied morerecently in the water crisis,
and that's exactly what theydescribe.
Actually, that's what theyfound, the research.
They call it intense localism.
It's a culture uh that activistsdevelop in this area, which uh
fuels mostly fights about localthings, bad water, right, bad
(28:44):
working conditions.
Right.
You know, you go to Seattle ifyou want to see somebody fight
about the monetary system of theworld.
SPEAKER_03 (28:51):
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02 (28:52):
You come to Flint if you want to see what what
happens every day in theirlives.
SPEAKER_03 (28:57):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (28:58):
In your opinion, do you think that helped to fuel
the resolve of the strikers?
SPEAKER_03 (29:02):
I think that's probably where it came from.
That's where it was established.
Probably a lot of cities where asit-down strike could have been
successful, but but Flint waswhere it happened, and I think
that success was whatestablished this tradition of
activism that you still see inFlint.
SPEAKER_02 (29:19):
And you have a magnificent list of uh books.
Tell us about that.
SPEAKER_03 (29:24):
The one I wrote before this one was called How
to Speak Midwestern.
I wrote that for a actually asmall publisher called Belt
Publishing in Ohio, but itturned out to be my best-selling
book.
It got a review in the New YorkTimes, and that sells a lot of
books.
So, you know, it was it wasabout the Midwestern, you know,
Midwesterners like to believe wedon't have an accent.
(29:45):
You know, regional accents arepart of regional identity, and
part of being a Midwesterner isbelieving you don't have a
Midwestern accent.
But I broke down the Midwesternaccent and I included a lot of
uh regional terms, like Michiganterms, you know, coney dog and
party stuff.
Another book called another bookin the sky and sort of the rest
of the spend of time.
(30:09):
I appreciate it for your time.
Thank you for promoting MidnightVehicle City.
So I think they've got someother copies there.
SPEAKER_02 (30:20):
Okay, very good.
We'll post that on our websiteand uh we'll make some links to
your other book.
SPEAKER_03 (30:26):
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02 (30:28):
That's the end of our podcast.
Thank you for joining us today.
This is Arthur Bush.
You're listening to Radio FreeFlint.
We hope that you will uh sign upfor our newsletter at
radiofreeflint.media.
You'll rate us, review us onApple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcast.
I want to thank Dan Hall andDavid Norris for allowing us to
use the song 1937 when SpiritsBurn, written about the Flint
(30:52):
sit-down strike.
The song contains excerpts froma speech from the late uh former
president of the UAW, Walter P.
Rutherford.
SPEAKER_01 (31:28):
We stand for right and we'll win this fight and
match them toe to toe.
So bring 'em on.
We're waiting here to fight ortalk, you choose.
And while we hold our brother'shand, the worker will never
lose.
Is there a truer heart todaythan those who took us there?
(31:56):
In 1937, cold the set-downstrike would end.
They left their wives and babiesalone to face the certainty.
What there when spirits burn waspassed to date.
SPEAKER_00 (32:28):
What it was like in the early days, how we were
beaten up by the gangsters andthe underworld goons, and how we
were shot at.
How we were intimidated.
But we overcame all of thatpower of these great
(32:51):
corporations.
And we demonstrated.
This is Arthur Bush, and you're listening to Radio
Free Flint.
Thank you for joining us today.
Today our episode Midnight inthe Vehicle City, the legacy of
Flint's Autoworkers, centersaround the 1937 sit-down strike
in the city of Flint.
The author, Edward McClellan, isfrom East Lansing, Michigan.
He joins us to talk about hisbook, Midnight in the Vehicle
(01:30):
City.
It's a good review of thehistory of the Flint sit-down
strike.
What might be the legacy of the1937 strike all these many years
later?
How it's continued to beremembered, and what it means
for the future of Flint.
Edward, welcome to Radio FreeFlint.
It's an honor to have you.
SPEAKER_03 (01:47):
Why did you write this book?
I decided it would be moreinteresting, maybe more exciting
to just write about oneincident, and I settled on the
sit-down strike.
Partly because one of our oldfamily friends, a guy named
Everett Ketchum, who's mentionedin the book, he was a sit-down
striker, and he was one of thelast, if not the last, survivors
of the sit-down strike.
(02:08):
He died in 2013 at age 98.
To me, he just exemplified thevictories of the strikers.
You know, he started out as anapprentice making 25 cents an
hour, and he retired as a tooland die maker in the 70s,
making, you know,$27 an hour.
And he had that GM lifetimehealth care, which is probably
one reason he lived so long.
(02:28):
You know, he was certainly aninspiration for writing the
book.
I mean, I really benefited fromthe fact that in the late 70s
and early 80s, a guy at U of MFlint named Neil Leighton, he
conducted oral histories withthe sit-down strikers.
But they had dozens and dozensof interviews.
Some of them are online at the Uof M.
Flint uh Labor History Project,but a lot of them were just uh
(02:51):
in boxes at the ThompsonLibrary, I think at the Genesee
County Historical Collection.
So I spent a couple days justyou know making making
photocopies that allowed me totell, tell the story uh of the
strike, you know, from the youknow, the voice of the striker.
And I think one reason it's it'ssuch a great story is you know,
(03:12):
you got uh not only do you havethose people, but I mean it was
a story that involved people upto the very highest levels uh of
society.
It involved you know, thegovernor of Michigan, Frank
Murphy, and the president of theUnited States, uh Franklin D.
Roosevelt.
He even got involved.
He had to call a GM executive toconvince them to negotiate with
the sit-down strikers.
GM's place in the corporatehierarchy or the American
(03:35):
hierarchy was at that time,maybe still is so grand that
they were not going to takeorders from anybody but the
president himself.
Roosevelt had to call WilliamKnudson.
SPEAKER_02 (03:45):
Well, they had they had C.S.
Mock that lived in Flint, whosat on the board of General
Motors.
SPEAKER_03 (03:51):
Right, right.
I don't think he was really.
I I I didn't write anythingabout him.
I don't know how much he wasinvolved in this or if he was
involved at all.
SPEAKER_02 (03:59):
But I mean, obviously I don't I've been
trying to find that out.
SPEAKER_03 (04:03):
Yeah, obviously, you know, Flint is the hometown of
General Motors, where GeneralMotors was founded.
It was where William Durantlived and where he put all the
companies together that made upGM.
SPEAKER_02 (04:14):
The research that you did was from these from
these interviews that youconducted.
Some are actually oral, so youcan listen to them on the
internet, and some you say youread.
SPEAKER_03 (04:26):
I think I read all of them.
As I said, all the strikers havepassed away, and that was
actually another reason I thinkI wrote the book, is that
somebody has to keep telling thestory because none of the
participants are with us to tellit anymore.
And of course, you know, I useda lot of accounts from the Flint
Journal.
Frances Perkins left a greatoral history.
(04:47):
She was the first woman in apresidential cabinet, and she
was very instrumental in helpingto settle the strike, her
argument with Alfred P.
Sloan.
That's in her oral history.
He backed out on an agreement inan agreement to negotiate with
the strikers, and she called himuh she called him a rotter and
told him he was gonna choke onhis money and go to hell.
He said, You can't talk to me,I'm Alfred Sloan.
(05:08):
I've got$70 million and I madeit all myself.
SPEAKER_02 (05:10):
Well, that's not exactly true.
It sounded good at the moment,probably to him, but I don't
think it it landed with mucheffect to the audience he was
speaking to.
SPEAKER_03 (05:23):
I went to New York, to Columbia University, to look
at the Francis Perkins papers.
SPEAKER_02 (05:28):
There were also three brothers involved in this.
SPEAKER_03 (05:31):
Right.
The Ruther.
Mostly two.
Uh it was it was Victor and RoyRuther.
Walter Ruther was busy inDetroit.
He had his own strike going on.
SPEAKER_02 (05:40):
One of the places it was was Fisher Body No.
Yeah, which is uh iconichistoric auto factory that
appeared in Roger and Me, and itshowed the balling, I guess, is
or felling of the tower, of thewater tower that was symbolic of
the plant going away.
Right.
The workers gathered in anotherplace.
(06:01):
Tell us where that was.
SPEAKER_03 (06:03):
Uh, just had a storefront across the street,
uh, where they were gathered formeetings, and there was a red
light above the door to let themknow.
They called it, I think, theflicker or the flasher to let
them know that there was ameeting going on.
And that's that's where BobTravis, who was the organizer in
charge of the strike, that'swhere he declared that this was
(06:23):
the this was the time they weregonna go on strike because
they'd wanted to delay it untilafter the new year when Frank
Murphy was sworn in.
Yeah, he was the New Dealgovernor of Michigan, and they
thought he was gonna besympathetic to the Union cause.
But uh a couple days before uhthe new year, first of all, uh
another sit-down strike kind ofbroke out in Cleveland, and then
uh they were hearing that GM wasgonna move the dyes from Flint
(06:47):
to Grand Rapids, and you know,Fisher One contained dyes that
stamped out body parts that wereused in GM cars all over the
country.
So if they could capture thatplant and control those dyes,
then they could stop GMproduction everywhere, and the
company would have to negotiatewith and I think that storefront
is still there.
I mean, there is a storefrontright across the street.
I think that building is stillthere.
SPEAKER_02 (07:07):
There was also a building called the Pengalley
Building, which was downtown.
Right.
And there's a road that's justthree blocks from this factory
called Pengalley Road.
What do you know about thePengalley building?
SPEAKER_03 (07:19):
An office building been demolished since then, and
that's where that's where theunion had its headquarters.
You know, they they'd haverallies there, they'd have
meetings there, and I think thestrike kitchen was there, they
would put on plays there, showmovies there.
So it was just the nerve centerof the whole strike operation.
SPEAKER_02 (07:37):
Yeah, now they had uh a women's brigade, right?
SPEAKER_03 (07:40):
Right.
Well, well, it started out as uhyou know ladies' auxiliary, and
uh there was a woman namedJanorah Johnson, and I think uh
uh some people in Flint thinkthere should be a statue of her
downtown, like there's a statueof you know Buick and Durant and
all those guys.
SPEAKER_02 (07:56):
Well, they're making progress.
They have one now, a Rosiederivator, so they're working
their way to Janorah Johnson,yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (08:03):
So she was someone who she was married to uh an
auto worker, a striker namedKermit Johnson uh at that time.
And you know, she was someonewho'd been involved in socialist
causes.
She invited Norman Thomas tospeak in Flint, and her family
read all the socialistpublications.
And when she went down to thePengelli building to volunteer,
they said, Well, we can put youto work in the kitchen.
(08:25):
And she didn't want to work inthe kitchen.
So she organized a picket line,and she had her two-year-old son
carrying a sign that said, Mydaddy strikes for us little
types.
And then uh after the battle ofthe running bulls, when the
police attacked Fisher 2, sheencouraged women to, you know,
run down to the plant andinterpose their bodies between
(08:46):
the strikers and the and thepolice and protect their men.
And so she thought that thewomen ought to play, you know,
there was as much at stake forthe women as the men, so the
women ought to play asignificant role in the strike
as the men did.
I mean, there were women workingin Fisher One and the cut and
sew department, but they weretold to leave as soon as the
sit-down strike broke outbecause you know the union
(09:08):
didn't want any rumors aboutwhat might be going on between
men and women in the plant.
That would have just underminedsupport from the home front.
So she started the next day, shestarted Women's Emergency
Brigade.
She was the captain and theywore red berets and they wore
red armbands, and they allcarried billy clubs underneath
their coats.
And when the union tried to takeover Chevy 4, which was an
(09:30):
engine plant, and that wouldthat was really going to shut
down the whole company.
And there was a diversionarybattle at Chevy 9, and the plant
police fired tear gas, and sothe women's emergency brigade
broke all the windows to let thetear gas escape.
So they they went into action.
The next day, the Flint Journal,I think, was reporting that
crazed women had broken windowsfor no apparent reason.
SPEAKER_02 (09:51):
Well, that wasn't true.
It wouldn't be the first timethey got it wrong.
I want to ask you some questionshere.
First one is what effect do youthink this strike had on Flint?
SPEAKER_03 (10:02):
Well, I think that for you know a long time they
said there was a more of aspirit of Union militancy in
Flint than other cities.
I think I'd read that strikestook longer to settle in Flint
than they did elsewhere.
But certainly it it had aneffect on Flint.
You know, as late as 1980, Flintwas the city with the highest
(10:23):
wages for workers under youngworkers in America.
And that was because you went towork in the in the shop and you
you went to work at the unionwage.
So Flint had several prosperousdecades following the sit-down
strike as a result of thesit-down strike.
SPEAKER_02 (10:40):
The UAW uh was not a socialist organization.
SPEAKER_03 (10:44):
No, but there was some of the organizers were
socialists and even communists.
Uh Wyndham Mortimer, who was thefirst organizer sent to Flint to
sort of organize uh put togethera union, he was a communist, and
so was Bob Travis, who was theuh sort of the general and the
architect of the sit-downstrike.
SPEAKER_02 (11:02):
So the the history of socialism in Flint dates back
quite a few years.
SPEAKER_03 (11:07):
Well, yeah, I think Flint had a socialist mayor in
the in the early 20th century,and then Mott ran against him.
The establishment, you know,decided to get its act together,
and they ran Mott against him,and Mott was elected mayor.
SPEAKER_02 (11:21):
At 1911, Thomas Menton was elected along with
three aldermen to the Flint CityCouncil, and that's they were
running on wages, hours, andworking conditions.
SPEAKER_03 (11:31):
There there were some tough times going on.
A lot of workers have been laidoff.
SPEAKER_02 (11:35):
There were people living in tar paper shacks in
the shadow of Buick.
SPEAKER_03 (11:39):
Right, right.
I mean, they couldn't buildenough housing for all the
workers who were you knowstreaming into Flint for these
good jobs.
SPEAKER_02 (11:46):
Right.
Well, the socialist idea, let'sf let's follow that for just a
second here.
You're quite knowledgeable aboutlabor history.
The socialist had a whole agendaand it involved a lot more than
work.
Part of it had to do with thefact that there were all these
men.
Flint went from like six orseven thousand people to ninety
thousand people in less than uhten years.
(12:08):
In fact, at one point it was thefastest growing city in America.
Some of their issues had to dowith they couldn't take a bath
because there wasn't any placeto get warm water.
They didn't have anyrecreational activities and so
on.
Industrialists at the time, theyweren't too keen on the idea
that these people were trying toend child labor because that was
(12:30):
one of their platforms.
Right.
They were unkeen on a wholebunch of stuff, but that was one
of them.
But in the end, the workers ofFlint voted for the guy that
that had just sold his companyto General Motors.
He he had to be one of thelargest shareholders at General
Motors at the time.
SPEAKER_03 (12:46):
They they gave him a 5% share to uh entice him to
move his company to Flint, andof course, you know, that ended
up being worth multi,multi-millions of of dollars.
SPEAKER_02 (12:58):
Once he got to Flint, he initially sold 49% of
his company, and he then afterhe got elected mayor, he sold
the rest.
SPEAKER_03 (13:06):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (13:07):
They didn't like the union.
I mean, they didn't like whatthey saw was the beginning of
organized labor in Flint.
SPEAKER_03 (13:14):
Right.
Well most industrialist don't.
SPEAKER_02 (13:17):
And and that theme has continued to this day.
It's not really any different,it seemed like.
In those days, Charles Mott wasmore in their face.
And they voted for him untilthey didn't, which was only a
few years later, 1915 was whenhe was defeated.
You said you wrote the bookbecause you think you think the
(13:38):
story needs to keep being told.
Yeah.
Do you think that's because it'snot taught in school, or why why
isn't it being told?
SPEAKER_03 (13:47):
Well, I don't think it's very well known outside of
Michigan or even outside ofFlint.
You know, it's the foundation ofthe of the United Auto Workers,
which was the flagship union uhin the United States.
I mean, this was the union thatset the wages and set the
benefits and set the terms forindustrial workers uh all over
the country.
And it was sort of the key tothis great 20th century middle
(14:10):
class that we had.
You know, it was interesting tome that you know, these workers
who were trying to start a unionat Amazon and Alabama, uh, that
how similar their concerns wereto the concerns of the sit-down
strikers.
You know, they wanted a morehumane pace of labor, uh, you
know, they didn't want to havepeeing in bottles on the job,
(14:31):
they wanted more job security,they wanted more say in the
workforce.
And of course, that effortfailed.
What I thought, and and I readan interesting article by a guy
named Harold Meyerson uh abouthow today the unions are
becoming a white-collarmovement.
You know, they're always thoughtof as a blue-collar movement.
But workers who feel likethey're replaceable, who feel
(14:52):
like the company can just moveout of town or pull the rug out
from out of them if they start aunion, they're more they're more
reluctant to unionize than youknow professionals who either
are not as replaceable or feellike they can find uh jobs
somewhere else.
So it's a so it's a strangemoment in the in the history of
the of the labor movement.
SPEAKER_02 (15:11):
And one of the things that was the legacy of
the sit-down strikes in Flintwas that they celebrated a
strike.
SPEAKER_03 (15:19):
Right.
White shirt, white shirt day.
I went to a couple white shirtdays.
SPEAKER_02 (15:23):
Okay.
Celebrating a strike is an oddthing.
I mean, most people don't wantto strike.
That is the most union peopleI've ever met in my life, they
prefer not to have strikes.
Right.
Why should the union celebratethis strike?
SPEAKER_03 (15:36):
I guess for the uh same reason that Christians
celebrate Christmas.
This is where it all began.
Uh this is where it all beganfor the UAW.
SPEAKER_02 (15:44):
That's very good.
Why a white shirt?
SPEAKER_03 (15:48):
Uh they wanted to show that they were that they
were as good as the asmanagement.
Management, you know, the theforeman wore white shirts, so
then all the workers wore.
SPEAKER_02 (15:56):
Let me understand what you're saying.
They have an event in memory ofthe strikers and all these
heroic people, and then they andthen they all wear white shirts
to this event.
Is that it?
SPEAKER_03 (16:08):
Right.
Well, uh, but they wouldoriginally they would wear white
shirts to work, and and I thinkthey still do in the plant.
SPEAKER_02 (16:15):
The day of the strike.
SPEAKER_03 (16:16):
On February 11th, the day the strike was settled.
SPEAKER_02 (16:19):
And is this just in Flint or all over the place?
SPEAKER_03 (16:22):
I think they wanted to make it a nationwide thing,
but it's mainly in Flint.
I've I mean I never really heardabout it being celebrated in
Lansing.
Uh, but every year it's at adifferent union hall uh in the
in Flint or in the Flint area.
And you know, they havepoliticians come there and uh
union officials, people comemake speeches.
They hold hands and singsolidarity forever.
(16:42):
And then they have women dressedup uh like when the women in the
women's emergency brigade, andthey're serving bean soup and
apples and bread, uh, which iswhat the strikers were eating in
the plants.
They want to say that this is aremembrance of the sacrifices
that they're the sit-downstrikers made for the prosperity
they have.
SPEAKER_02 (17:00):
Do you think that traditional carry on pretty
well?
SPEAKER_03 (17:03):
Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, I went to a couple in
recent years and they mentionedthat these there were no
original strikers or members ofthe women's emergency brigade
left anymore.
I mean, I guess as long as carsare made in Flint, however much
longer that is, uh I think itwill carry on.
SPEAKER_02 (17:18):
Well, they don't make cars in Flint anymore, they
just make trucks.
SPEAKER_03 (17:21):
Okay, well, as long as vehicles are made in the
vehicle in the vehicle city.
SPEAKER_02 (17:25):
What do you hope is the impact of your book?
SPEAKER_03 (17:28):
Uh, you know, I want people to see what can happen
when when workers standtogether, unite, and I want to I
want to show that uh when thegovernment supports workers,
then then they succeed.
I mean, it wouldn't havesucceeded without the support of
Frank Murphy and Francis Perkinsand Franklin D.
Roosevelt.
You know, Frank Murphy couldhave sent in the National Guard
(17:48):
to evict the strikers from theplants as the as the court or as
the court had ordered them, butinstead he sent the National
Guard as a peacekeeping fort.
He said, you know, get in thestreets, get between surround
the plants, get between thepolice and the strikers, and
make sure there's there's nomore violence.
You know, President Bidendelivered a speech that some
people thought was the mostpro-union speech they'd ever
heard from in America.
(18:09):
He supported the workers in inAlabama and said every worker
has a right to belong to aunion.
You know, as I said before, someworkers just have so much
economic anxiety now, they'reafraid to join a union.
And I want Flint to be known forsomething other than the water
crisis.
How about that?
SPEAKER_02 (18:25):
The strike was one thing that's known for that that
many people who were trying tomarket the city thought was a
negative.
How would you respond to that?
They said, why do we celebrate astrike and put it on our
expressway?
Why why do we celebrate thestrike?
And that is supposedly a messageto business don't come here.
SPEAKER_03 (18:43):
As a result of the strike, there was more of a a
spirit of labor militancy inFlint than in other cities.
And some people in the 80s, theythought that that was the reason
that the GM was pulling out ofFlint.
They thought that they weregetting revenge for the sit-down
strike 50 years later.
You know, the the decline of Gof GM employment in Flint is
(19:04):
pretty much at the same level asit is everywhere else in the
country.
SPEAKER_02 (19:07):
Let me ask you about Flint as we see it today.
You said you spent a lot of timein Flint, that's right.
SPEAKER_03 (19:14):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (19:14):
What was it about your visit to Flint while you
were writing this book that thatsurprised you about the city?
SPEAKER_03 (19:20):
Well, you know, I just thought it was fascinating,
sort of the progression that theindustries followed.
You know, Flint started out as alogging town, lumbering town.
When the lumber was played out,they had this this wood, and
okay, what are we going to dowith this?
Well, we'll make carriages.
Uh, and so then Flint was thenumber one carriage
manufacturer.
And then around 1900, they sawthat uh, you know, these guys
(19:42):
like Ari Olds and Henry Fordwere putting motors on
carriages.
And they said, well, we need todo that, we need to get with the
20th century.
So then Flint became anautomaking town.
So I I was fascinated by thatfor sure.
SPEAKER_02 (19:55):
The Flint people, some of them like to call
themselves Flintstones.
SPEAKER_03 (20:00):
Right.
I thought, well, that waspopularized by uh Mateen Cleves
and Morris Peterson and CharlieBell when they played for the
Michigan State Spartans, theycalled themselves the the
Flintstones.
And I I before that I'd heardFlint Oid, but I think
Flintstones is the one that'sthat's really caught on and been
embraced locally.
Do you do you call yourself aFlintstone?
SPEAKER_02 (20:22):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03 (20:23):
Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:24):
Uh what does that represent to you?
But what's it mean to be aFlintstone?
SPEAKER_03 (20:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:30):
I mean it's more than a moniker, it's more than a
nickname.
It has it has more to do, Ithink, with something else.
What's that?
There's some theories about theFlintstone uh concept here that
I'm exploring.
And the theory is this they'retough, they're resilient, you
know, they have strength, uh,they're loyal.
(20:50):
Once they won the nationalchampionship, they were they
were one other thing, and theywere winners.
SPEAKER_03 (20:55):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (20:56):
The townspeople here began to identify with this,
this idea.
They they articulated whatpeople in Flint.
I mean, before that, people werelooking for Texas, you know,
they weren't they weren'ttalking about how wonderful
Flint was.
So now when you talk to theseFlintstones, many of them will
say they believe that thosequalities, those those
(21:16):
character, the ethos of theirphilosophy and so on, that it's
embedded in the fabric of thecity.
And many feel that they they'veacquired those those things by
being part of Flint, by beingraised here, that that's what
you learn when you're little.
Okay.
How is that different than whatyou've observed in other
blue-collar cities that youwrote about in your works?
SPEAKER_03 (21:37):
I think you'll find it in other places.
I think you'd find it, say, in aplace like Youngstown, Ohio.
That's another blue-collar citythat's been through some tough
times.
I think you'd find it inCleveland.
You'd find it in Detroit.
So yeah, I think I think it is acommon thread in blue-collar
cities that endured tough timesduring the during the Rust Belt
era.
It makes a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_02 (21:58):
And you wrote this blue sky book, which I was
fascinated by.
You talk about an optimism inthat book.
SPEAKER_03 (22:04):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (22:04):
Can you explain what that is?
SPEAKER_03 (22:06):
Uh you know, I kind of meant the title as sort of a
play on words, you know, nothingbut blue skies.
That's what I think I got theidea from a guy in South
Chicago, and after the millclosed, he said, I looked up uh
one day and I saw a blue sky andI thought the world had ended
because there was no more smokecoming out of the chimneys.
It's the end of something, butit's also a blank slate.
(22:27):
Of course, you know, nothing butblue skies, that's a very
optimistic kind of song.
Build something new.
SPEAKER_02 (22:33):
There have been some studies that show that
de-industrialization in thesecities that we're making
reference to, that it gives riseto a certain optimism that may
be unrealistic.
SPEAKER_03 (22:46):
Sure.
SPEAKER_02 (22:46):
Have you heard of that?
SPEAKER_03 (22:48):
You know, I did see people who thought, you know,
they could build something brandnew, I guess, out of out of the
ashes, and I don't know howsuccessful uh it it always was.
I mean, I think there's someoptimism in Flint.
It's got a new farmers market.
That's something you know peopleare optimistic about.
SPEAKER_02 (23:06):
When I talk to these people on this podcast, many of
them tell me that they believethat Flint has a certain
resilience.
SPEAKER_03 (23:14):
Yeah.
I mean it it has to.
I mean, it's lost more than halfits population, I think, since
it's its peak.
I think you'd have to beresilient to stay in Flint, to
want to stay in Flint and towant to keep trying to build
something there.
SPEAKER_02 (23:26):
The history of the city is is such that they've
overcome a lot of uh ups anddowns.
And the automobile economy, bydefinition, is uh an economy
that is a roller coaster.
SPEAKER_03 (23:37):
Right, right.
I can't imagine what's gonnacome back.
No other uh industry wherethere's more value added than in
in making automobiles.
That's why it was so lucrativefor such a long time.
So I don't I don't know thatFlint's ever gonna find anything
to replace that.
It's hard to imagine Flint beingas prosperous, say, as it was in
the 60s and the 70s and the andthe 80s.
SPEAKER_02 (24:00):
What do you think that they did in babbling for
their town way back then?
SPEAKER_03 (24:04):
Yeah, they always say even today that it wasn't
about money, it was about youknow it was about dignity.
And I think that they theyestablished a lot of precedence
or things, things that workerstake for granted today.
You know, before the sit-downstrike, they would say that
there was no job security.
You had to bring food to yourforeman, or you have to you'd
have to paint his house or throwhim a party, and if you didn't,
(24:25):
he could just you know kick youout, and his brother-in-law
would be working in your placethe next day.
And you know, they really didn'tlike workers over 40 because
they couldn't keep up with thepace of the assembly line.
You know, after the sit-downstrike ended, the contracts at
layups were going to be byseniority, and that's something
you know we we take for grantedtoday, but that was something
(24:46):
that was not at all in place atGeneral Motors before the
sit-down strike.
SPEAKER_02 (24:49):
We still have General Motors in Flint, they
didn't leave.
We still have one of the mostsignificant factories in there,
a bag of tricks.
We make hot selling trucks.
Right.
And there are still 7,000workers there in those two
plants.
Is there something differenttoday about the workers than
there were in 1937?
SPEAKER_03 (25:08):
They're more prosperous.
I hope they're more they're moresatisfied with with their
working conditions uh than theywere back then, and uh even
today a direct result of whatthe sit-down strikers did, you
know, 85 years ago.
SPEAKER_02 (25:20):
Anything else?
Are they willing to fight forwhat they've got?
SPEAKER_03 (25:23):
I mean, I remember talking to a guy, he was a guy
in Lansing, and he'd beenparticipating in the 1970s
strike.
You know, that was when they gotthe you know the 30 and out.
He said, well, after that we hadeverything.
There was nothing more to fightfor.
I think maybe maybe they're morelikely to feel like that now
that they've got it all.
There was that strike a fewyears ago, and there was a
(25:44):
pretty significant strike a fewyears ago.
SPEAKER_02 (25:46):
You're talking about the strike at the metal fab that
shut down General Motors?
SPEAKER_03 (25:49):
Well, that was one.
I was thinking that was in 1998.
This was the one, I think it wasjust two or three years ago when
GM went on strike, the wholecompany.
SPEAKER_02 (25:57):
How is Flip Michigan so different than any of these
other places?
Janesville, Wisconsin was acompany town.
Yeah.
General Motors Company town.
And uh, but for us for somedemographic differences, it
probably was the same city.
Right.
In a different place.
Janesville, Wisconsin, they wenthome and waited until the people
(26:18):
in Flint sat down.
SPEAKER_03 (26:20):
Right.
Well, I mean, the the the wholeUAW uh uh hierarchy had just
decided that Flint was wherethat they wanted to, that Flint
was the key city.
Flint was the city they weretargeting because you know Flint
had the most GM plants, andFlint had those key GM plants
and had those key dyes and thosekey engines.
So if they could organize Flint,if they could shut down Flint,
then they could organize thewhole company.
(26:42):
So I think it's just a matter ofyou know having being so central
and so important to GeneralMotors is is why this happened
in in Flint.
SPEAKER_02 (26:50):
Let me get back to my original question.
So we have we have a whole bunchof places uh where General
Motors operates.
How is Flint different today orand then than other places?
SPEAKER_03 (27:01):
Because it it was so dependent on General Motors.
I mean, I think I read liketwo-thirds of the people in
Flint got a paycheck fromGeneral Motors one way or the
other.
You know, I'm from Lansing, andLansing uh, you know, had a
significant GM presence, but youknow, it's also the state
capital, and it also hadMichigan State University.
So the state employment was athree-legged stool, you know,
(27:22):
campus cars and capital.
But in Flint, it was aone-legged stool.
SPEAKER_02 (27:25):
You started out talking to me about the
willingness to fight by theseworkers, their willingness to
stand up and stand up for whatthey believe.
Is Flint different in thatrespect?
That it has a more uh intenselyuh activist uh mindset than
these other places?
SPEAKER_03 (27:44):
Can I read uh uh from a guy named Gordon Young
that it might have been he mighthave been on your show?
And I think he sums it up prettywell.
It's a it's a blurb he wrote.
Let's see.
Midnight in Vehicle Citycaptures the flint today through
the captivating story of thecity's past.
McClellan reveals the toughness,determination, and even
recklessness that fueled autoworkers and their families in
(28:04):
1936 as he took on a corporategiant, the military, and an
unsympathetic press.
If you ever wonder why currentFlint residents haven't given
up, this book is an engagingreminder that fighting seemingly
unwinnable battles is part ofthis city's DNA.
SPEAKER_02 (28:18):
Some experts that I've talked to in political
science have studied morerecently in the water crisis,
and that's exactly what theydescribe.
Actually, that's what theyfound, the research.
They call it intense localism.
It's a culture uh that activistsdevelop in this area, which uh
fuels mostly fights about localthings, bad water, right, bad
(28:44):
working conditions.
Right.
You know, you go to Seattle ifyou want to see somebody fight
about the monetary system of theworld.
SPEAKER_03 (28:51):
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02 (28:52):
You come to Flint if you want to see what what
happens every day in theirlives.
SPEAKER_03 (28:57):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (28:58):
In your opinion, do you think that helped to fuel
the resolve of the strikers?
SPEAKER_03 (29:02):
I think that's probably where it came from.
That's where it was established.
Probably a lot of cities where asit-down strike could have been
successful, but but Flint waswhere it happened, and I think
that success was whatestablished this tradition of
activism that you still see inFlint.
SPEAKER_02 (29:19):
And you have a magnificent list of uh books.
Tell us about that.
SPEAKER_03 (29:24):
The one I wrote before this one was called How
to Speak Midwestern.
I wrote that for a actually asmall publisher called Belt
Publishing in Ohio, but itturned out to be my best-selling
book.
It got a review in the New YorkTimes, and that sells a lot of
books.
So, you know, it was it wasabout the Midwestern, you know,
Midwesterners like to believe wedon't have an accent.
(29:45):
You know, regional accents arepart of regional identity, and
part of being a Midwesterner isbelieving you don't have a
Midwestern accent.
But I broke down the Midwesternaccent and I included a lot of
uh regional terms, like Michiganterms, you know, coney dog and
party stuff.
Another book called another bookin the sky and sort of the rest
of the spend of time.
(30:09):
I appreciate it for your time.
Thank you for promoting MidnightVehicle City.
So I think they've got someother copies there.
SPEAKER_02 (30:20):
Okay, very good.
We'll post that on our websiteand uh we'll make some links to
your other book.
SPEAKER_03 (30:26):
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02 (30:28):
That's the end of our podcast.
Thank you for joining us today.
This is Arthur Bush.
You're listening to Radio FreeFlint.
We hope that you will uh sign upfor our newsletter at
radiofreeflint.media.
You'll rate us, review us onApple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcast.
I want to thank Dan Hall andDavid Norris for allowing us to
use the song 1937 when SpiritsBurn, written about the Flint
(30:52):
sit-down strike.
The song contains excerpts froma speech from the late uh former
president of the UAW, Walter P.
Rutherford.
SPEAKER_01 (31:28):
We stand for right and we'll win this fight and
match them toe to toe.
So bring 'em on.
We're waiting here to fight ortalk, you choose.
And while we hold our brother'shand, the worker will never
lose.
Is there a truer heart todaythan those who took us there?
(31:56):
In 1937, cold the set-downstrike would end.
They left their wives and babiesalone to face the certainty.
What there when spirits burn waspassed to date.
SPEAKER_00 (32:28):
What it was like in the early days, how we were
beaten up by the gangsters andthe underworld goons, and how we
were shot at.
How we were intimidated.
But we overcame all of thatpower of these great
(32:51):
corporations.
And we demonstrated.
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