Nov. 15, 2022
Midnight in the Vehicle City: The Strike Heard Around the World
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 producin
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Transcript
WEBVTT
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This is Arthur Bush, and you're listening to Radio Free Flint.
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Thank you for joining us today.
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Today our episode Midnight in the Vehicle City, the legacy of Flint's Autoworkers, centers around the 1937 sit-down strike in the city of Flint.
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The author, Edward McClellan, is from East Lansing, Michigan.
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He joins us to talk about his book, Midnight in the Vehicle City.
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It's a good review of the history of the Flint sit-down strike.
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What might be the legacy of the 1937 strike all these many years later?
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How it's continued to be remembered, and what it means for the future of Flint.
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Edward, welcome to Radio Free Flint.
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It's an honor to have you.
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Why did you write this book?
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I decided it would be more interesting, maybe more exciting to just write about one incident, and I settled on the sit-down strike.
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Partly because one of our old family friends, a guy named Everett Ketchum, who's mentioned in the book, he was a sit-down striker, and he was one of the last, if not the last, survivors of the sit-down strike.
00:02:07.840 --> 00:02:11.360
He died in 2013 at age 98.
00:02:11.360 --> 00:02:15.759
To me, he just exemplified the victories of the strikers.
00:02:15.759 --> 00:02:23.680
You know, he started out as an apprentice making 25 cents an hour, and he retired as a tool and die maker in the 70s, making, you know, $27 an hour.
00:02:23.680 --> 00:02:28.080
And he had that GM lifetime health care, which is probably one reason he lived so long.
00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:31.199
You know, he was certainly an inspiration for writing the book.
00:02:31.199 --> 00:02:43.199
I mean, I really benefited from the fact that in the late 70s and early 80s, a guy at U of M Flint named Neil Leighton, he conducted oral histories with the sit-down strikers.
00:02:43.199 --> 00:02:46.000
But they had dozens and dozens of interviews.
00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:47.759
Some of them are online at the U of M.
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Flint uh Labor History Project, but a lot of them were just uh in boxes at the Thompson Library, I think at the Genesee County Historical Collection.
00:02:57.919 --> 00:03:09.599
So I spent a couple days just you know making making photocopies that allowed me to tell, tell the story uh of the strike, you know, from the you know, the voice of the striker.
00:03:09.599 --> 00:03:20.240
And I think one reason it's it's such a great story is you know, you got uh not only do you have those people, but I mean it was a story that involved people up to the very highest levels uh of society.
00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:25.919
It involved you know, the governor of Michigan, Frank Murphy, and the president of the United States, uh Franklin D.
00:03:25.919 --> 00:03:26.479
Roosevelt.
00:03:26.479 --> 00:03:27.360
He even got involved.
00:03:27.360 --> 00:03:32.479
He had to call a GM executive to convince them to negotiate with the sit-down strikers.
00:03:32.479 --> 00:03:42.800
GM's place in the corporate hierarchy or the American hierarchy was at that time, maybe still is so grand that they were not going to take orders from anybody but the president himself.
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Roosevelt had to call William Knudson.
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Well, they had they had C.S.
00:03:46.879 --> 00:03:50.960
Mock that lived in Flint, who sat on the board of General Motors.
00:03:51.199 --> 00:03:51.919
Right, right.
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I don't think he was really.
00:03:53.360 --> 00:03:55.360
I I I didn't write anything about him.
00:03:55.360 --> 00:03:59.439
I don't know how much he was involved in this or if he was involved at all.
00:03:59.599 --> 00:04:02.800
But I mean, obviously I don't I've been trying to find that out.
00:04:03.039 --> 00:04:08.240
Yeah, obviously, you know, Flint is the hometown of General Motors, where General Motors was founded.
00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:14.560
It was where William Durant lived and where he put all the companies together that made up GM.
00:04:14.879 --> 00:04:20.560
The research that you did was from these from these interviews that you conducted.
00:04:20.560 --> 00:04:26.319
Some are actually oral, so you can listen to them on the internet, and some you say you read.
00:04:26.639 --> 00:04:28.000
I think I read all of them.
00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:39.680
As I said, all the strikers have passed away, and that was actually another reason I think I wrote the book, is that somebody has to keep telling the story because none of the participants are with us to tell it anymore.
00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:44.000
And of course, you know, I used a lot of accounts from the Flint Journal.
00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:46.879
Frances Perkins left a great oral history.
00:04:46.879 --> 00:04:56.240
She was the first woman in a presidential cabinet, and she was very instrumental in helping to settle the strike, her argument with Alfred P.
00:04:56.240 --> 00:04:56.800
Sloan.
00:04:56.800 --> 00:04:57.839
That's in her oral history.
00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:05.600
He backed out on an agreement in an agreement to negotiate with the strikers, and she called him uh she called him a rotter and told him he was gonna choke on his money and go to hell.
00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:08.160
He said, You can't talk to me, I'm Alfred Sloan.
00:05:08.160 --> 00:05:10.639
I've got $70 million and I made it all myself.
00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:12.800
Well, that's not exactly true.
00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:22.879
It sounded good at the moment, probably to him, but I don't think it it landed with much effect to the audience he was speaking to.
00:05:23.199 --> 00:05:27.759
I went to New York, to Columbia University, to look at the Francis Perkins papers.
00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:30.959
There were also three brothers involved in this.
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Right.
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The Ruther.
00:05:32.399 --> 00:05:34.079
Mostly two.
00:05:34.079 --> 00:05:36.879
Uh it was it was Victor and Roy Ruther.
00:05:36.879 --> 00:05:38.639
Walter Ruther was busy in Detroit.
00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:40.240
He had his own strike going on.
00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:43.360
One of the places it was was Fisher Body No.
00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:58.160
Yeah, which is uh iconic historic auto factory that appeared in Roger and Me, and it showed the balling, I guess, is or felling of the tower, of the water tower that was symbolic of the plant going away.
00:05:58.160 --> 00:05:58.800
Right.
00:05:58.800 --> 00:06:01.439
The workers gathered in another place.
00:06:01.439 --> 00:06:02.959
Tell us where that was.
00:06:03.279 --> 00:06:12.079
Uh, just had a storefront across the street, uh, where they were gathered for meetings, and there was a red light above the door to let them know.
00:06:12.079 --> 00:06:16.720
They called it, I think, the flicker or the flasher to let them know that there was a meeting going on.
00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:30.319
And that's that's where Bob Travis, who was the organizer in charge of the strike, that's where he declared that this was the this was the time they were gonna go on strike because they'd wanted to delay it until after the new year when Frank Murphy was sworn in.
00:06:30.319 --> 00:06:35.839
Yeah, he was the New Deal governor of Michigan, and they thought he was gonna be sympathetic to the Union cause.
00:06:35.839 --> 00:06:53.920
But uh a couple days before uh the new year, first of all, uh another sit-down strike kind of broke out in Cleveland, and then uh they were hearing that GM was gonna move the dyes from Flint to Grand Rapids, and you know, Fisher One contained dyes that stamped out body parts that were used in GM cars all over the country.
00:06:53.920 --> 00:07:03.279
So if they could capture that plant and control those dyes, then they could stop GM production everywhere, and the company would have to negotiate with and I think that storefront is still there.
00:07:03.279 --> 00:07:05.519
I mean, there is a storefront right across the street.
00:07:05.519 --> 00:07:07.279
I think that building is still there.
00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:11.439
There was also a building called the Pengalley Building, which was downtown.
00:07:11.439 --> 00:07:12.079
Right.
00:07:12.079 --> 00:07:17.120
And there's a road that's just three blocks from this factory called Pengalley Road.
00:07:17.120 --> 00:07:19.439
What do you know about the Pengalley building?
00:07:19.920 --> 00:07:25.279
An office building been demolished since then, and that's where that's where the union had its headquarters.
00:07:25.279 --> 00:07:32.959
You know, they they'd have rallies there, they'd have meetings there, and I think the strike kitchen was there, they would put on plays there, show movies there.
00:07:32.959 --> 00:07:36.879
So it was just the nerve center of the whole strike operation.
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Yeah, now they had uh a women's brigade, right?
00:07:40.560 --> 00:07:40.800
Right.
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Well, well, it started out as uh you know ladies' auxiliary, and uh there was a woman named Janorah Johnson, and I think uh uh some people in Flint think there should be a statue of her downtown, like there's a statue of you know Buick and Durant and all those guys.
00:07:56.319 --> 00:07:57.519
Well, they're making progress.
00:07:57.519 --> 00:08:02.800
They have one now, a Rosie derivator, so they're working their way to Janorah Johnson, yeah.
00:08:03.279 --> 00:08:10.639
So she was someone who she was married to uh an auto worker, a striker named Kermit Johnson uh at that time.
00:08:10.639 --> 00:08:14.560
And you know, she was someone who'd been involved in socialist causes.
00:08:14.560 --> 00:08:20.160
She invited Norman Thomas to speak in Flint, and her family read all the socialist publications.
00:08:20.160 --> 00:08:25.279
And when she went down to the Pengelli building to volunteer, they said, Well, we can put you to work in the kitchen.
00:08:25.279 --> 00:08:27.040
And she didn't want to work in the kitchen.
00:08:27.040 --> 00:08:35.679
So she organized a picket line, and she had her two-year-old son carrying a sign that said, My daddy strikes for us little types.
00:08:35.679 --> 00:08:50.080
And then uh after the battle of the running bulls, when the police attacked Fisher 2, she encouraged women to, you know, run down to the plant and interpose their bodies between the strikers and the and the police and protect their men.
00:08:50.080 --> 00:08:59.840
And so she thought that the women ought to play, you know, there was as much at stake for the women as the men, so the women ought to play a significant role in the strike as the men did.
00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:11.440
I mean, there were women working in Fisher One and the cut and sew department, but they were told to leave as soon as the sit-down strike broke out because you know the union didn't want any rumors about what might be going on between men and women in the plant.
00:09:11.440 --> 00:09:14.639
That would have just undermined support from the home front.
00:09:14.639 --> 00:09:17.840
So she started the next day, she started Women's Emergency Brigade.
00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:24.960
She was the captain and they wore red berets and they wore red armbands, and they all carried billy clubs underneath their coats.
00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:34.480
And when the union tried to take over Chevy 4, which was an engine plant, and that would that was really going to shut down the whole company.
00:09:34.480 --> 00:09:44.159
And there was a diversionary battle at Chevy 9, and the plant police fired tear gas, and so the women's emergency brigade broke all the windows to let the tear gas escape.
00:09:44.159 --> 00:09:45.519
So they they went into action.
00:09:45.519 --> 00:09:50.960
The next day, the Flint Journal, I think, was reporting that crazed women had broken windows for no apparent reason.
00:09:51.279 --> 00:09:52.159
Well, that wasn't true.
00:09:52.159 --> 00:09:54.320
It wouldn't be the first time they got it wrong.
00:09:54.320 --> 00:09:57.919
I want to ask you some questions here.
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First one is what effect do you think this strike had on Flint?
00:10:02.080 --> 00:10:10.000
Well, I think that for you know a long time they said there was a more of a spirit of Union militancy in Flint than other cities.
00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:15.120
I think I'd read that strikes took longer to settle in Flint than they did elsewhere.
00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:17.679
But certainly it it had an effect on Flint.
00:10:17.679 --> 00:10:26.080
You know, as late as 1980, Flint was the city with the highest wages for workers under young workers in America.
00:10:26.080 --> 00:10:31.600
And that was because you went to work in the in the shop and you you went to work at the union wage.
00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:39.679
So Flint had several prosperous decades following the sit-down strike as a result of the sit-down strike.
00:10:40.080 --> 00:10:44.080
The UAW uh was not a socialist organization.
00:10:44.399 --> 00:10:48.639
No, but there was some of the organizers were socialists and even communists.
00:10:48.639 --> 00:11:02.080
Uh Wyndham Mortimer, who was the first organizer sent to Flint to sort of organize uh put together a union, he was a communist, and so was Bob Travis, who was the uh sort of the general and the architect of the sit-down strike.
00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:07.360
So the the history of socialism in Flint dates back quite a few years.
00:11:07.679 --> 00:11:15.039
Well, yeah, I think Flint had a socialist mayor in the in the early 20th century, and then Mott ran against him.
00:11:15.039 --> 00:11:21.360
The establishment, you know, decided to get its act together, and they ran Mott against him, and Mott was elected mayor.
00:11:21.600 --> 00:11:31.600
At 1911, Thomas Menton was elected along with three aldermen to the Flint City Council, and that's they were running on wages, hours, and working conditions.
00:11:31.919 --> 00:11:33.679
There there were some tough times going on.
00:11:33.679 --> 00:11:35.120
A lot of workers have been laid off.
00:11:35.759 --> 00:11:39.440
There were people living in tar paper shacks in the shadow of Buick.
00:11:39.759 --> 00:11:40.320
Right, right.
00:11:40.320 --> 00:11:46.639
I mean, they couldn't build enough housing for all the workers who were you know streaming into Flint for these good jobs.
00:11:46.879 --> 00:11:47.039
Right.
00:11:47.039 --> 00:11:50.720
Well, the socialist idea, let's f let's follow that for just a second here.
00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:53.759
You're quite knowledgeable about labor history.
00:11:53.759 --> 00:11:58.399
The socialist had a whole agenda and it involved a lot more than work.
00:11:58.399 --> 00:12:01.840
Part of it had to do with the fact that there were all these men.
00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:08.320
Flint went from like six or seven thousand people to ninety thousand people in less than uh ten years.
00:12:08.320 --> 00:12:12.080
In fact, at one point it was the fastest growing city in America.
00:12:12.080 --> 00:12:17.360
Some of their issues had to do with they couldn't take a bath because there wasn't any place to get warm water.
00:12:17.360 --> 00:12:20.960
They didn't have any recreational activities and so on.
00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:31.440
Industrialists at the time, they weren't too keen on the idea that these people were trying to end child labor because that was one of their platforms.
00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:31.840
Right.
00:12:31.840 --> 00:12:34.879
They were unkeen on a whole bunch of stuff, but that was one of them.
00:12:34.879 --> 00:12:42.559
But in the end, the workers of Flint voted for the guy that that had just sold his company to General Motors.
00:12:42.559 --> 00:12:46.320
He he had to be one of the largest shareholders at General Motors at the time.
00:12:46.639 --> 00:12:58.000
They they gave him a 5% share to uh entice him to move his company to Flint, and of course, you know, that ended up being worth multi, multi-millions of of dollars.
00:12:58.480 --> 00:13:06.399
Once he got to Flint, he initially sold 49% of his company, and he then after he got elected mayor, he sold the rest.
00:13:06.720 --> 00:13:07.039
Okay.
00:13:07.679 --> 00:13:09.279
They didn't like the union.
00:13:09.279 --> 00:13:13.840
I mean, they didn't like what they saw was the beginning of organized labor in Flint.
00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:14.639
Right.
00:13:14.639 --> 00:13:16.799
Well most industrialist don't.
00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:19.919
And and that theme has continued to this day.
00:13:19.919 --> 00:13:22.799
It's not really any different, it seemed like.
00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:27.120
In those days, Charles Mott was more in their face.
00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:35.519
And they voted for him until they didn't, which was only a few years later, 1915 was when he was defeated.
00:13:35.519 --> 00:13:40.639
You said you wrote the book because you think you think the story needs to keep being told.
00:13:40.639 --> 00:13:41.360
Yeah.
00:13:41.360 --> 00:13:46.799
Do you think that's because it's not taught in school, or why why isn't it being told?
00:13:47.200 --> 00:13:51.919
Well, I don't think it's very well known outside of Michigan or even outside of Flint.
00:13:51.919 --> 00:13:59.200
You know, it's the foundation of the of the United Auto Workers, which was the flagship union uh in the United States.
00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:06.240
I mean, this was the union that set the wages and set the benefits and set the terms for industrial workers uh all over the country.
00:14:06.240 --> 00:14:12.080
And it was sort of the key to this great 20th century middle class that we had.
00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:23.840
You know, it was interesting to me that you know, these workers who were trying to start a union at Amazon and Alabama, uh, that how similar their concerns were to the concerns of the sit-down strikers.
00:14:23.840 --> 00:14:34.960
You know, they wanted a more humane pace of labor, uh, you know, they didn't want to have peeing in bottles on the job, they wanted more job security, they wanted more say in the workforce.
00:14:34.960 --> 00:14:37.200
And of course, that effort failed.
00:14:37.200 --> 00:14:46.799
What I thought, and and I read an interesting article by a guy named Harold Meyerson uh about how today the unions are becoming a white-collar movement.
00:14:46.799 --> 00:14:49.039
You know, they're always thought of as a blue-collar movement.
00:14:49.039 --> 00:15:07.360
But workers who feel like they're replaceable, who feel like the company can just move out of town or pull the rug out from out of them if they start a union, they're more they're more reluctant to unionize than you know professionals who either are not as replaceable or feel like they can find uh jobs somewhere else.
00:15:07.360 --> 00:15:11.519
So it's a so it's a strange moment in the in the history of the of the labor movement.
00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:18.960
And one of the things that was the legacy of the sit-down strikes in Flint was that they celebrated a strike.
00:15:19.279 --> 00:15:19.600
Right.
00:15:19.600 --> 00:15:21.440
White shirt, white shirt day.
00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:22.879
I went to a couple white shirt days.
00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:23.440
Okay.
00:15:23.440 --> 00:15:26.159
Celebrating a strike is an odd thing.
00:15:26.159 --> 00:15:28.240
I mean, most people don't want to strike.
00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:32.639
That is the most union people I've ever met in my life, they prefer not to have strikes.
00:15:32.639 --> 00:15:33.279
Right.
00:15:33.279 --> 00:15:36.240
Why should the union celebrate this strike?
00:15:36.559 --> 00:15:40.480
I guess for the uh same reason that Christians celebrate Christmas.
00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:41.840
This is where it all began.
00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:44.480
Uh this is where it all began for the UAW.
00:15:44.879 --> 00:15:46.080
That's very good.
00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:48.000
Why a white shirt?
00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:52.559
Uh they wanted to show that they were that they were as good as the as management.
00:15:52.559 --> 00:15:56.000
Management, you know, the the foreman wore white shirts, so then all the workers wore.
00:15:56.480 --> 00:15:58.080
Let me understand what you're saying.
00:15:58.080 --> 00:16:07.519
They have an event in memory of the strikers and all these heroic people, and then they and then they all wear white shirts to this event.
00:16:07.519 --> 00:16:08.240
Is that it?
00:16:08.559 --> 00:16:08.720
Right.
00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:14.879
Well, uh, but they would originally they would wear white shirts to work, and and I think they still do in the plant.
00:16:15.279 --> 00:16:16.080
The day of the strike.
00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:19.039
On February 11th, the day the strike was settled.
00:16:19.279 --> 00:16:21.600
And is this just in Flint or all over the place?
00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:24.799
I think they wanted to make it a nationwide thing, but it's mainly in Flint.
00:16:24.799 --> 00:16:28.000
I've I mean I never really heard about it being celebrated in Lansing.
00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:33.840
Uh, but every year it's at a different union hall uh in the in Flint or in the Flint area.
00:16:33.840 --> 00:16:39.840
And you know, they have politicians come there and uh union officials, people come make speeches.
00:16:39.840 --> 00:16:42.480
They hold hands and sing solidarity forever.
00:16:42.480 --> 00:16:52.320
And then they have women dressed up uh like when the women in the women's emergency brigade, and they're serving bean soup and apples and bread, uh, which is what the strikers were eating in the plants.
00:16:52.320 --> 00:16:59.840
They want to say that this is a remembrance of the sacrifices that they're the sit-down strikers made for the prosperity they have.
00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:02.720
Do you think that traditional carry on pretty well?
00:17:03.039 --> 00:17:12.480
Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, I went to a couple in recent years and they mentioned that these there were no original strikers or members of the women's emergency brigade left anymore.
00:17:12.480 --> 00:17:18.079
I mean, I guess as long as cars are made in Flint, however much longer that is, uh I think it will carry on.
00:17:18.319 --> 00:17:20.960
Well, they don't make cars in Flint anymore, they just make trucks.
00:17:21.279 --> 00:17:25.279
Okay, well, as long as vehicles are made in the vehicle in the vehicle city.
00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:28.000
What do you hope is the impact of your book?
00:17:28.319 --> 00:17:40.400
Uh, you know, I want people to see what can happen when when workers stand together, unite, and I want to I want to show that uh when the government supports workers, then then they succeed.
00:17:40.400 --> 00:17:45.519
I mean, it wouldn't have succeeded without the support of Frank Murphy and Francis Perkins and Franklin D.
00:17:45.519 --> 00:17:46.000
Roosevelt.
00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:55.599
You know, Frank Murphy could have sent in the National Guard to evict the strikers from the plants as the as the court or as the court had ordered them, but instead he sent the National Guard as a peacekeeping fort.
00:17:55.599 --> 00:18:03.039
He said, you know, get in the streets, get between surround the plants, get between the police and the strikers, and make sure there's there's no more violence.
00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:09.039
You know, President Biden delivered a speech that some people thought was the most pro-union speech they'd ever heard from in America.
00:18:09.039 --> 00:18:15.359
He supported the workers in in Alabama and said every worker has a right to belong to a union.
00:18:15.359 --> 00:18:21.200
You know, as I said before, some workers just have so much economic anxiety now, they're afraid to join a union.
00:18:21.200 --> 00:18:24.000
And I want Flint to be known for something other than the water crisis.
00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:24.799
How about that?
00:18:25.119 --> 00:18:31.440
The strike was one thing that's known for that that many people who were trying to market the city thought was a negative.
00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:32.960
How would you respond to that?
00:18:32.960 --> 00:18:36.880
They said, why do we celebrate a strike and put it on our expressway?
00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:39.440
Why why do we celebrate the strike?
00:18:39.440 --> 00:18:43.200
And that is supposedly a message to business don't come here.
00:18:43.599 --> 00:18:49.680
As a result of the strike, there was more of a a spirit of labor militancy in Flint than in other cities.
00:18:49.680 --> 00:18:55.519
And some people in the 80s, they thought that that was the reason that the GM was pulling out of Flint.
00:18:55.519 --> 00:19:00.240
They thought that they were getting revenge for the sit-down strike 50 years later.
00:19:00.240 --> 00:19:06.880
You know, the the decline of G of GM employment in Flint is pretty much at the same level as it is everywhere else in the country.
00:19:07.599 --> 00:19:10.319
Let me ask you about Flint as we see it today.
00:19:10.319 --> 00:19:13.839
You said you spent a lot of time in Flint, that's right.
00:19:14.079 --> 00:19:14.559
Yeah.
00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:20.559
What was it about your visit to Flint while you were writing this book that that surprised you about the city?
00:19:20.880 --> 00:19:26.880
Well, you know, I just thought it was fascinating, sort of the progression that the industries followed.
00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:30.240
You know, Flint started out as a logging town, lumbering town.
00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:34.880
When the lumber was played out, they had this this wood, and okay, what are we going to do with this?
00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:36.160
Well, we'll make carriages.
00:19:36.160 --> 00:19:39.039
Uh, and so then Flint was the number one carriage manufacturer.
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And then around 1900, they saw that uh, you know, these guys like Ari Olds and Henry Ford were putting motors on carriages.
00:19:46.240 --> 00:19:49.599
And they said, well, we need to do that, we need to get with the 20th century.
00:19:49.599 --> 00:19:52.319
So then Flint became an automaking town.
00:19:52.319 --> 00:19:55.200
So I I was fascinated by that for sure.
00:19:55.519 --> 00:20:00.000
The Flint people, some of them like to call themselves Flintstones.
00:20:00.319 --> 00:20:00.720
Right.
00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:11.839
I thought, well, that was popularized by uh Mateen Cleves and Morris Peterson and Charlie Bell when they played for the Michigan State Spartans, they called themselves the the Flintstones.
00:20:11.839 --> 00:20:20.079
And I I before that I'd heard Flint Oid, but I think Flintstones is the one that's that's really caught on and been embraced locally.
00:20:20.079 --> 00:20:22.240
Do you do you call yourself a Flintstone?
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