An OAH Distinguished Lecturer’s PerspectiveMichael Honey |
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In February, I gave an OAH Distinguished Lecture on “King’s Unfinished Agenda: The Struggle for Racial and Economic Justice” at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. This lecture is based on research for my forthcoming book, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, King’s Last Campaign. I have been working intensely on this book, so I found this lecture a welcome opportunity to reflect upon King’s work as a labor and civil rights advocate, particularly from 1965 to 1968. My host, Daniel Clark of Oakland’s history department, had published a book on textile union organizing in the South and is currently doing interviews with retired auto workers in the Detroit area, so we had a great deal to talk about (1). His students also made my visit a special treat, due to their interest in labor and community history. Taking time to be with students and faculty at another institution is highly rewarding. When I gave my lecture, I met numerous people from the community as well as the history department and its invited guests, who enlivened the evening with great questions and comments. Inevitably, our discussion led to the current policies of the Bush administration, which are antithetical to everything Dr. King believed in. Putting the current policies of war and repression into the context of a previous time, when a Democratic administration followed a similarly disastrous obsession with military solutions to social problems, provided a sobering but also energizing moment. We got beyond our daily frustrations to a discussion of what we as citizens can do when the people are manipulated and government misused. I also had a special reason for enjoying my time at Oakland: it is where I went to undergraduate school, and I had not been back for 37 years. Then, we had 2,500 students; now, Oakland has 17,000 students. Then, we were in the boondocks; now, Oakland is surrounded by a more or less prosperous suburbia. Oakland is still a stone’s throw from urban Pontiac and Detroit, where black leaders have taken charge, but the economic bottom has fallen out. At least today more people in the suburbs may be aware of the plight of the poor than they were during the massive Detroit riot of 1967, when we lived at Oakland. With the hurricane-like destruction of auto jobs in the area, hardly anyone there can be unaware of the difficulties workers face in the global economy. For me, it was not exactly déjà vu all over again, but similar problems in a new context. What made the trip especially memorable was being joined by my old classmates—political scientist and United Auto Workers attorney David Black and Jerry Hill, a world-traveling China scholar and attorney—as well as one of the great lecturers of our time at Oakland, Roy Kotynek, an intellectual historian who has lost none of his sharpness and wit. It was a great reunion as well as a great evening. I recommend doing OAH Lectures. It is a great way to get out and see people, to test ideas among different audiences, and to get in touch with history students and professors at other institutions. And it also helps if you do it at your long-lost alma mater. Michael Honey currently teaches at the University of Washington Tacoma and holds the university system’s Harry Bridges Chair of Labor Studies. Endnote |
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