by Dianne Feeley and Jane Slaughter
“Your landlord says you’re a squatter. Give us the keys and get out.” So said Detroit police officers to Rosey White when she answered a knock on the door of her West Side rental on a cold night in December 2016. At no point did either the police or the landlord show any legal paperwork justifying the eviction, because there was none.
“I was able to grab my purse and a few items,” White said. She went to a police precinct that same night to try to file a complaint, but the police refused…
by Will Froberg
On Tuesday March 30th Detroit DSA’s electoral committee held their bi-weekly meeting. The event was facilitated by Lauren Trendler, committee co-chair and campaign advisor for DSA member Landis Spencer’s run for the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners in the Detroit municipal election this November.
The first speaker was Anthony D. who explained that the Charter Revision Commission (CRC) recently adopted a set of proposed changes to the Charter of the City of Detroit — which can be thought of as a constitution for the City. The CRC is a nine member, elected government body that was created…
by Ron Lare, UAW Local 600 retired, Ford Rouge, Detroit DSA Member
I applaud striking Teamster 337 members for inspiring the rest of us with a fight-back.
I have learned lessons from strikes. I think these lessons are relevant to the current Teamster strike against 7Up (Keurig-Dr. Pepper company).
Beginning in July 1995 and officially ending in 2001, the Detroit newspaper strike was full of lessons for the Detroit labor left — the labor activists with radical tendencies. Some strikers were permanently injured. One ran for public office based on strike demands. As a strike supporter, I was in jail…
by Chris Viola, UAW Local 22, Detroit DSA Member
A little over a year ago I heard of an effort within the UAW to transition to direct elections, or what is often referred to as “one member, one vote.” We currently have a delegate system in which the locals elect one or more people to represent them at the union convention every four years, voting on motions as well as the next slate of leadership.
Supporters of the change said it would help us keep a check on leadership, and that the delegate system concentrated power on a few individuals…
by Lauren Trendler
I grew up believing I was solidly middle class. My family was never in serious financial straits and I didn’t anticipate that for myself. I was raised to believe that life was not fair and hard work is no guarantee of success, but if you do the right things, it will work out.
As a youngster in the prosperous ’90s, I bought into this meritocracy. Good things would come my way because I was a good person who checked the right boxes. I would soon understand this as a social construct, that there was no “solid” middle…
by Jason Krzysiak, UAW Local 245, Detroit DSA Member
The striking Teamsters of Local 337 have been picketing at the Keurig/Dr. Pepper/7-Up Bottling Company of Detroit since March 10th.
The situation degenerated March 17th when private security goons hired by the company assaulted one of the picketers and spewed racial slurs at the Teamsters who had assembled at the gates. This was after they laughed at a demand to make MLK Day a contractually recognized holiday at the bargaining table.
The union has sent a call out to the community to support these workers and demand that KDP/7-Up of Detroit…
by Vince Carducci
Shortly after noon on Friday, March 5, a group of community spokespersons organized by the Detroit DSA held a press conference in front of the Spirit of Detroit downtown to voice their opposition to the proposed 2022 fiscal year municipal budget Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has submitted to City Council. …
by Vince Carducci
This article originally appeared in the Michigan Historical Review.
Detroit occupies a central place in the African American experience, from the city’s earliest days as a French colony to the first stirrings of abolitionism to the pioneering of civil rights and up to the present. Black Detroit: A People’s History of Self-Determination chronicles this history through an eminently readable narrative that combines extensive primary and secondary sources, as well as personal memoir. It is a kaleidoscopic view of the often underacknowledged contribution of African Americans to Detroit’s development, as well as the nation as a whole. It…
Detroit Democratic Socialists of America
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