Civil rights & activism / Law / Politics
Kenneth Cockrel Sr.
1938–1989 · radical lawyer, community organizer, city councilman
Marxist lawyer and co-founder of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers who won landmark courtroom battles for poor Detroiters and sat on the City Council (1978–1982).
- Born
Royal Oak Township, Michigan- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 50- Birth name
- Kenneth Vern Cockrel
- Also known as
- Ken Cockrel
- Detroit years
- 1950–1989
- Field
- Civil rights & activism, Law, Politics
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Ken Cockrel was born in 1938 in Royal Oak Township, a poor Black community just north of Detroit, where his father worked at Ford's Highland Park plant. Orphaned at twelve, he moved in with relatives in Detroit, attended Northwestern and Central high schools and left school at seventeen for the Air Force. After his discharge he entered Wayne State through a program for adults without diplomas, graduating in 1964 and taking his law degree there in 1967 while working at the Detroit News. With radical autoworkers of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement he co-founded the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in 1969, and he became Detroit's best-known movement lawyer, winning acquittals for Black defendants in cases that put police abuse and factory conditions on trial. Elected to the Common Council in 1977 as an 'independent socialist,' he served until 1982 and built the Detroit Alliance for a Rational Economy. He was back in law practice and weighing a run for mayor when he died of a heart attack in 1989.
Highlights
- Co-founder of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (1969)
- Detroit Common Council member, 1978–1982
- Law graduate of Wayne State University (1967)
- Founder of the Detroit Alliance for a Rational Economy
- Father of Mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr.
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1959–1967
Wayne State University
He entered through a program for adults without diplomas, graduating in 1964 and earning his law degree in 1967.
Worked here · 1978–1982
The Spirit of Detroit
Seat of the Common Council, where he served one term.