Labor / Civil rights & activism
Victor Reuther
1912–2004 · UAW organizer and education director
Youngest of the organizing Reuther brothers, a key voice of the 1936–1937 sit-down strikes and the UAW's education and international director.
- Born
Wheeling, West Virginia- Died
Washington, D.C.
aged 92- Birth name
- Victor George Reuther
- Detroit years
- 1930s–1950s
- Field
- Labor, Civil rights & activism
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Victor Reuther, the youngest of the three union-building brothers from Wheeling, followed Walter to Detroit and studied with him at Detroit City College before the pair set off in 1933 on a three-year journey through Europe and the Soviet Union, where they worked in the Gorky auto plant. Back home in 1936 he helped lead the Kelsey-Hayes sit-down strike on Detroit's west side, and during the great Flint sit-down strike against General Motors he became famous for driving a sound car around the plants, rallying strikers through a rooftop loudspeaker. He went on to head the UAW's education department, training shop stewards and organizers. On May 24, 1949, thirteen months after the attack on Walter, a shotgun assassin fired through the window of Victor's Detroit home as he read the newspaper; he lost an eye, and the case was never solved. In the 1950s he moved into the UAW's international work, representing the union in Europe and Washington, and remained an outspoken labor voice until his death at 92.
Highlights
- Helped lead the Kelsey-Hayes sit-down strike in Detroit, 1936
- Rallied Flint strikers from a sound car in 1937
- Director of the UAW education department
- Lost an eye in a 1949 shotgun attack at his Detroit home