Alan Reuther is an author, a former lawyer and legislative director for the United Auto Workers whose work in labor is a matter of legacy: He is the son of Roy Reuther, another labor leader and organizer, and nephew of Victor Reuther and Walter Reuther, yet more labor leaders – the latter famous enough for a Time magazine influential-people list, posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom and a name-check in a Thomas Pynchon novel. Yet as a former United Auto Workers president, Roy was instrumental behind the scenes. At a moment unions, diversity work and human rights are reeling in America, “Roy Reuther and the UAW: Fighting for Workers and Civil Rights,” traces that work and history in a Flint, Michigan, sit-down strike, issues such as voter participation and the civil rights movement. We caught up with the author to talk about researching and writing a personal and historical book and what he hopes a new generation of socialists and labor organizers can learn from his family’s history. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Why did you feel it was important to write this book?
Partly I just thought that there were a lot of very dramatic episodes in my father’s life, both in the sit-down strike and later his involvement in struggles for civil rights legislation. But I also thought that a lot of the things that he was fighting for, those issues are still going on. Showing his life actually provides context for a lot that we’re struggling through – struggles to organize by various groups of workers, civil rights struggles going on.
What was your research and writing process like?
Obviously some of it’s based on my own memories as a child and young adult, but I also had a lot of great assistance from the archivists at the Reuther Library archives of labor and urban affairs at Wayne State University. They helped me with my father’s files and many other records that were instrumental in helping to research for the book. Obviously I also read all the secondary sources, the biographies of Walter that had been written, a number of the major works on the civil rights movement. And Victor Reuther’s memoir, his book was also very helpful.
What was one of the more unexpected things you discovered?
My mother was actually present during the sit-down strike, but she happened to be married to someone else other than my father. I knew that they all lived in a group house where a bunch of socialists were rooming together, and so I sort of had in mind that ‘Gosh, maybe there was these vibes in the house, tensions or something between them,’ but it turns out that they became really close friends and my mother and her first husband were actually later instrumental at helping to get my father reinstated to a position in the Flint local after the president tried to oust him. It was a revelation to me to see that they worked quite closely together.
What can current union organizers and members learn from this book?
That people can overcome enormous odds to win tremendous victories for social justice. Sit-down strikers were taking down the most powerful corporation in the world at the time, and they came out victorious after being on strike for 44 days. In the civil rights struggles in the sixties, they were taking on an entrenched system of apartheid that had been there for generations and were able to pass amazing legislation and overcome that. So I hope that gives people today hope that if they persevere and are intelligent and brave, that they can win tremendous victories. The other major theme from the book is interconnections between the labor movement and the civil rights movement – that we’re stronger when we reach out and try and form those types of coalitions. If we band together, these labor issues and civil rights issues, it increases our strength and it will help us advance progressive causes in this country.
What impact do you hope this book has?
I hope it gives people hope for the future. I’ve done various book events around the country and been very encouraged by the number of young people who’ve been showing up. It seems to me they’re very hungry for an indication of what the path forward is, so that gives me encouragement.
Alan Reuther reads from “Roy Reuther and the UAW: Fighting for Workers and Civil Rights” at 7 p.m. at Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free. Community organizer Evan MacKay joins.
This post was updated July 29, 2025, to correct the spelling of Wendy Wunder’s name.
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