Walter Reuther, labor visionary

Brothers Roy, Walter and Victor Reuther were all prominent labor figures, raised in Wheeling, West Virginia by socialist parents. Their father was a brewery union leader at age 23.

The UAW formed in 1935. Its first big attempt to unionize plants was a strike at GM's Fisher Body Plant No. 1 in Flint, beginning in December 1936. Above, strikers peruse newspapers and magazines in the 'Reading Quarters' during the strike. In February 1937, GM recognized the UAW as the exclusive bargaining representative for its employees.

With the strike in Flint under way, Detroit soon followed. On Jan. 8, 1937, Local UAW representative Walter Reuther called for a sit-down strike at the Fleetwood plant in Detroit which made bodies for Cadillac.

On May 24, 1937, UAW-CIO board member Richard Frankensteen stands on a ladder to hang a UAW Headquarters for Ford Workers sign in Detroit with local UAW representative Walter Reuther, second from right, and other union officials. But there would be a long road ahead before Henry Ford would agree to union representation in his company.

Just before the beat-down that would come to be known as the "Battle of the Overpass," three Ford security men approach union leaders Walter P. Reuther and Richard T. Frankensteen just outside the Rouge Plant on May 26, 1937. Reuther had obtained a permit from the city of Dearborn to distribute literature.

UAW-CIO board member Richard Frankensteen is attacked by Ford Motor Company security officers on May 26, 1937. This photo, by James Kilpatrick of The Detroit News, captured national attention and helped to sway public opinion in favor of labor unions.

Bloodied labor heroes Walter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen show the damage after the "Battle of the Overpass" on May 26, 1937. Their historic efforts led to the first union contract with Ford Motor Co.

A mass UAW meeting in Cadillac Square in Detroit in February 1938 drew thousands. "There is no power in the world that can stop the forward march of free men and women when they are joined in the solidarity of human brotherhood," Walter Reuther once said.

During World War II, Reuther worked for the War Manpower Commission, the Office of Production Management and the War Production Board. A strong supporter of the war effort,

Workers construct tanks at the Chrysler Tank Arsenal in January 1943. Walter Reuther said, "Like England's battles were won on the playing fields of Eton, America's were won on the assembly lines of Detroit."

Walter Reuther, now vice president of the UAW-CIO, speaks to pickets grouped around a sound truck in front of the Chevrolet Gear and Axle Plant in Detroit on Nov. 23, 1945.

Reuther enlisted the support of some prominent members of the Screen Actors Guild -- Frederick March, left, and Melvyn Douglas -- at a UAW rally for striking GM workers in February 1946. That year, he would be elected president of the UAW.

Walter Reuther speaks to a crowd on Labor Day at Detroit City Hall in 1948. "Management has no divine rights," he said. "Management has only functions, which it performs well or poorly. The only prerogatives which management has lost turned out to be usurpations of power and privilege to which no group of men have exclusive right in a democratic nation."

His arm in traction, a severely injured Walter Reuther lies in a bed at Grace Hospital on April 27, 1948 with his wife May at his side, after an assassination attempt that permanently damaged his right arm.

The assault happened at the Reuthers' modest home on Detroit's west side. A 12-gauge shotgun blast through a rear window shattered bones in Reuther's right arm so badly he thought it had been shot off. Another slug went into his back and out through his stomach.

Reuther signs a contract with Ford in 1949. The young man standing behind him, William Clay Ford, who went through negotiations with Reuther, considered him an "unprincipled demagogue."

In 1950, Reuther testifies about the attempt on his life at the trial of Carl Bolton, a man charged with assault with intent to kill after two convicts said he offered them $15,000 to do the deed. Bolton was acquitted and the case was never solved. A court reporter is in the foreground.

In 1950, Reuther makes comments to the media about a new five-year contract between General Motors and the UAW that would shape labor relations for decades. Later called the Treaty of Detroit, the contract protected automakers from annual strikes in exchange for the establishment of a pension plan, health benefits and more.

Ford Motor Co. President Henry Ford II talks with Walter Reuther in October 1952.

Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy and UAW President Walter Reuther talk during a campaign stop in March 1960.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. carries a wreath on a march to the courthouse for memorial services in Selma, Ala. for the Rev. James Reeb in March 1965. Behind him is Walter Reuther, a longtime supporter of civil rights. It was Reuther who called for the first meeting in Washington D.C. in 1949 to discuss civil rights legislation.

Dr. King and Walter Reuther talk on June 19, 1966, at the "We Rally For Freedom" event at Cobo Hall.

Reuther joins striking Ford employees in October 1967.

On May 10, 1970, Reuther and his wife May were on a charter flight to Pellston, Michigan, were the union was building an education and recreational center, when their six-passenger Lear jet clipped the tops of trees as it approached the airport. The plane nosedived and burst into flames. There were no survivors.

Henry Ford II arrives at the funeral services for Reuther at Ford Auditorium in Detroit on May 14, 1970. Nearly 3,000 attended, including U.S. senators, two cabinet members, labor leaders and numerous UAW members, whose absence closed a number of plants.