Michael C Hamlin

A Black Revolutionary's Life in Labor: Black Workers Power in Detroit Michael C Hamlin

A Black Revolutionary's Life in Labor: Black Workers Power in Detroit by Michael Hamlin with Michele Gibbs is a must read personal narrative of a book for labor activists, students and educators, community organizers and lovers of black history. In this candid narrative Hamlin exposes the horrors of growing up black in America from a Mississippi sharecropper's plantation to Korean War soldier, and ultimately truck driver for the Detroit News and his increasing rage at the system. Hamlin, a key organizer of DRUM and a leader of The League of Revolutionary Black Workers, describes his role in the 1960's and early 1970's when black assembly line workers shut down Chrysler Detroit's Dodge Main and Eldon Road auto plants to protest racial discrimination, safety violations and poor working conditions. The actions spawned a national revolutionary union movement built on black workers power.

In documented conversation with Michele Gibbs, political activist, artist and poet, Hamlin offers an inside look at the development of the League and its internal struggles, analyzes historic gains made and lessons learned as they apply to the continuing fight for racial equality by the working class. The book includes a Readers Study Guide, appendices of documents, poetry, artwork and photos pertinent to the period.