Throughline - The Swing State Power Brokers

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Today on the show, two stories of building power in swing states: from the top down, and the bottom up.First, how a future Supreme Court justice helped launch a program to challenge voters at the Arizona polls in the early 1960s, in a county that's become a hotbed for election conspiracies in the decades since. Then, how a 1973 labor strike led by Arab Americans in a Michigan factory town sparked a political movement that could play a major role in the 2024 election.This story is part of "We, The Voters," NPR's election series reported from the seven swing states that will most likely decide the 2024 election.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. Do you think that I really would be here in front of the Judiciary Committee of the United States to testify on the qualifications of the Chief Justice after 27 years of trying lawsuits if I wasn't absolutely sure that I interviewed Bill Rehnquist because voters

pointed him out. In the summer of 1986, the Senate held hearings to confirm William Rehnquist as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. And some of the most dramatic moments of the hearings didn't have anything to do with his previous 14 years as an associate justice on the bench. Instead, it was about something that happened years before he was even a judge. to do with his previous 14 years as an associate justice on the bench. Instead, it was about something that happened years before he was even a judge, when he was living in Phoenix, Arizona, in the 1960s.

— We saw Mr. Rehnquist drive up. — There was a group of young Republicans. I saw them there, and I saw them approach at least one one voter and if my memory is correct, two. Witnesses say they saw William Rehnquist, who was a well-known attorney at the time, at polling places in the early 1960s. The witnesses said Rehnquist was there to challenge the eligibility of some voters. He approached the line on the outside of the polling place. He said, pardon me, are you a qualified voter to this black gentleman?

And the man said yes. And he said, do you have any credentials to indicate that you are? The man said no. And he said, well then perhaps there's a question whether or not you're qualified. Was he harassing voters? Yeah, he harassed one right in front of me. What did he do? Ask him to read a card.

Read something from the Constitution. I kept looking and I thought he was going to stick it in my face, and I'm going to stick my fist in his mouth. During the hearing, William Runquist denied any claims that he harassed or intimidated any voters. Yes, I do deny that. I deny that. Yes, I do deny that. I deny that. Yes, I do deny that. But he did acknowledge that he gave legal advice to Republicans who were at the polls

challenging voter eligibility, and that in some cases, he showed up at the polling places himself. He called it an election day program. Others called it a ballot security program. Others called it a ballot security program. Rehnquist was sworn in as Chief Justice and the nation moved on. But that so-called Election Day program had taken on a life of its own, becoming a national strategy whose legacy still reverberates today in the bigger fight over controlling the vote. Some key states are still debating and battling over brand new election rule changes.

A big, big case from the Wisconsin Supreme Court restoring ballot drop boxes. Also in Arizona though, the Supreme Court just reinstated a voting law there regarding proof of citizenship. Georgia's election board today approved a controversial new rule to require hand counts of all ballots at polling places. In the end, this election will come down to who votes, which is why there are a number of new state laws both restricting and expanding voting rights and access. There has also been a rise in voter challenges.

In a tight presidential race, which polls show is virtually tied, it truly feels like any little bit of power that can be leveraged, big or small, will help one side or the other. Every single vote will count, especially in the battleground states. In the last four years, the integrity of Arizona's election system has... There have been more than 100,000 challenges to voters in Georgia since the last election. The path to the White House goes through Wisconsin.

Pennsylvania is absolutely critical. Battleground North Carolina taking center. So, Nevada, get out of the vote. Arab American voters in Michigan can sway the election. On this episode of Throughline from NPR, we're going to tell you some stories from two battleground states that we've all been hearing a lot about lately, Arizona and Michigan, to show you how some of today's political dynamics were seeded. First, the story of how a future Supreme Court justice helped launch a program to challenge voters at the local polls in Arizona,

in a county that's become a hotbed for election conspiracies about voter fraud. Then, how a 1973 labor strike led by Arab Americans in a Michigan factory town sparked a political movement that could play a major role in the election this November. Coming up, two stories of building power from the top down and the bottom up that have both American elections. Hi, this is Carol Daly from Phoenix, Arizona, and you're listening to ThruLine from NPR. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees.

Download the Wyse app today or visit wyse.com, T's and C's apply. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, offering over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Hand-selected for their inherent craft, each hotel tells its own unique story through distinctive design and immersive experiences, from medieval falconry to volcanic wine tasting. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of over 30 hotel brands around the world. Find the unforgettable at autographcollection.com.

This election season, you can expect to hear a lot of news, some of it meaningful, much of it not. Give the Up First podcast 15 minutes, sometimes little less, and we'll help you sort it out what's going on around the world and at home. Three stories, 15 minutes, up first every day. Listen every morning, wherever you get your podcasts. Part one, a flurry of fists. Renquist agreed to the interview with the New York Times.

He told me, under duress, we told him, we're going to do a profile of you whether you cooperate or not. Nearly two years before William Renquist became Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John A. Jenkins was trying to get an interview with him. I am a journalist based in Washington, D.C. And he wrote a book called The Partisan, The Life of William Rehnquist. He replied with a letter, Mr. Jenkins, I'd like to meet you.

And why don't you come in and we'll decide when you get there whether or not this is an interview we can do." This was a big deal because William Rehnquist didn't really do a lot of interviews, and he had a reputation for being a bit of a loner on the court. He frequently was the only person in dissent on a case. So John goes into the interview thinking that this might be his only shot. I took my tape recorder, I had my notes prepared, I had my questions, I went in and I just set the recorder up.

We just started talking. John wanted to know why Rehnquist was often the only judge dissenting on a case. But when the conversation started flowing, he says they jumped from one idea to the next. And when their time was up, he said, okay, you can schedule another interview, but try to be more organized next time. After the interview, John met with his editor to game plan what they were going to actually do with the story. And she told him, what you need to do is you need to understand the origins of his conservatism. And digging into these origins, it started revealing why Rehnquist was so sure of what was right and wrong, so unflinching in his values, and believed so strongly in what the

Constitution said that he was willing to go to great lengths to protect it. William Rehnquist is born in 1924. He lives in Shorewood, Wisconsin. A suburb of Milwaukee. Shorewood, Wisconsin is all white. And Shorewood High School is all white. And Shorewood High School is all white. And it's here inside Rehnquist's high school that John can see from the beginning.

He is deeply ideological. Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. — William Rehnquist was a senior in high school when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. And he got involved. He helped organize a school assembly called Wake Up America and was active in a patriotic group called United States of Young Americans. — And he signs up during high school to be a block captain to report subversive activity to the FBI in case it exists. After he graduates, Renquist

enlists in the army and serves until the war ends. Then he comes back, gets his law degree from Stanford. First in his class. And then he lands a clerkship with US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who was a strong advocate for First Amendment rights and civil liberties. So he just had a supreme self-confidence. And it was during his clerkship with Jackson, five months in, where Rehnquist would show what kind of conservative he was. 1952, he's 28 years old. Brown vs. Board of Education is now in front of the court. And Rehnquist, he writes a memo to Jackson in which he is telling Jackson,

you don't have to vote for this. You don't have to vote with the majority. There is a more principled stand. — Just got a couple of questions for you, and I hope we can get through them pretty quickly. Do you mind if I tape a quarter on it? — We got ahold of John's last conversation with William Rehnquist before his article in the New York Times magazine was published in 1985. In the phone call, John asked him about a similar memo he'd written around the same time

regarding a voting rights case. May I read it to you? You said the, uh, it is about time the court faced the fact that the white people on the South, in the South you men, don't like the colored people. The Constitution restrains them from effect affecting this dislike through state action, but it most assuredly did not appoint the court as a sociological watchdog to rear up every time private discrimination raises its admittedly ugly head. John reads some more and then he asks, Would you subscribe to that today?

I just can't answer a question that kind of picks a paragraph over the phone. And they ask me a yes or no. Well, I would be happy to stop by and show you the entire memo. It's just a one-page memo with three paragraphs. I think that would help. We're in oral argument. I'm going to have to go in about two or three minutes. Later, in his confirmation hearing, Rehnquist would try to deflect answering any questions directly about his views on integration,

including the memo about Brown v. Board, which he said reflected Jackson's views, not his. Doesn't the memo that was written, that you wrote, doesn't it have language indicating that you were indicating your views, not Justice Jackson's views? You know, I suppose one could read it either way. The eyes, and it certainly could have been mine, rather just looking at it as a text rather than Justice Jackson's. In the end, Brown v. Board was unanimous in its decision to end school segregation.

Jackson had voted with the rest of the court. And to many, Rehnquist had shown his cards. Rehnquist believed that integration was a matter of personal choice, and it should not be forced on anyone. And he also believed it was a matter for the states to decide, not the federal government. It was your classic conservative position.

A position that would help Rehnquist establish himself as an ideological purist among a new group of rising Republican stars. How the hell does he end up in Arizona? Republican stars. How the hell does he end up in Arizona? He has almost one criterion of where he wants to relocate. It has to be warm. Milwaukee and Shorewood, Wisconsin are very, very cold. He doesn't like it.

And that lands him in Phoenix, Arizona, as he described in a graduation ceremony in 1999. I put my worldly goods in my 1941 Studebaker Champion coupe and drove to Phoenix by way of my hometown in Milwaukee. Phoenix is something of a frontier town. As I came out of the mountains to the northeast and descended to the Salt River Valley, I saw a thermometer on a bank which registered 110 degrees. Streets emanating out of the main part of town are still unpaved. Rank was joined a small private practice. He's already coming to Phoenix with his conservative philosophy fully baked.

Like many other cities across the country at that time, Phoenix was reckoning with Jim Crow laws and an emerging civil rights movement. And Rehnquist was part of a new conservative voice that pushed back. When the Phoenix City Council passed an anti-discrimination ordinance, he wrote a letter to the editor and spoke at the meeting. He got noticed and he was effective. Rehnquist was encouraged to get involved with politics, and that meant extra scrutiny of voters in precincts that leaned Democrat. Republicans believe that many of them were voting illegally.

We in the Republican Party think that it is un-American for persons to attempt to vote in violation of the law. We are surprised that your party does not desire to manifest the same interest in correcting illegal voting procedures. I charged the Republicans with using Mississippi tactics in Arizona to try to thwart the minority vote in the state. Republicans said some people used vacant lots to register their addresses or they hadn't lived in Arizona long enough to vote.

So to challenge these voters. They would target mailings, they would say, from Democratic precincts, but they were very predominantly communities of color. And if the mail came back as undeliverable, they would send challengers to the polls to challenge their eligibility. Which brings us to November 6, 1962. Election Day. to November 6, 1962, election day. Voters lined up at an elementary school named after civil rights leader, Mary McLeod Bethune.

The precinct was predominantly Hispanic and black. Two white Republican voter challengers, one of whom was allegedly Rehnquist, I'm quoting now, confronted Black and minority voters at the Bethune School voting precinct on November 6, 1962. This is Tova Wang. I am the director of research projects in democratic practice at the Ash Center at Harvard Kennedy School.

And I've written a book called The Politics of Voter Suppression, Defending and Expanding Americans' Right to Vote. — We asked Tova to read excerpts from an FBI background investigation that was requested for Rehnquist's confirmation onto the U.S. Supreme Court. — They displayed a card with an excerpt from the Constitution and asked Blacks and minorities to prove they were literate by reading the excerpt aloud.

— We the people. — The allegation was that he was showing up himself at polling places and challenging voters. In order to form a more perfect union. Asking them to read. Establish justice. The activity discouraged the black voters who then did not vote. Blessings of liberty. As the day progressed, Democratic poll watchers

became incensed and telephone party officials and law enforcement personnel, many of whom arrived at the scene and attempted to dissuade the Republican challengers. Finally, a scuffle ensued and the Republicans departed. The Arizona Republic called it a flurry of fists. William Rehnquist doesn't seem to have been involved in this scuffle. He would later deny it, but said he would sometimes show up at precincts and provide

counsel as an attorney. Under Arizona law, the different political parties were allowed to send delegates to the polls to challenge voters who they suspected were voting illegally. But election officials were the sole judges of a voter's qualification. So the question was, were Arizona Republicans going too far to challenge voters? Voter intimidation and interfering with someone's right to vote, if it crossed the line into that, then it was a problem. And according to one FBI interview, the plan was to cloud polls

in heavily minority Democratic precincts. By sending an army of challengers to the polling place at peak voting periods and thereby intimidate some voters and scare them away from voting or frustrate voters by causing such a time delay that they would give up and leave without voting. What was happening in Phoenix, Arizona was a field test for something much bigger,

an operation that would be launched two years later during a presidential election. Coming up, the strategy to challenge voters goes national. This message comes from The Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian. Discover stories of history, science, art, and culture that aren't available on any display case. Hear about the ghosts that are said to walk the museum halls after dark and more. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. This message comes from 48hours.

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Give a little, get a lot in return. Visit plus.npr.org. From this moment, united and determined, we will go forward together, dedicated to the ultimate and undeniable greatness of the whole man. Part two. Operation Eagle Eye. Together we will win. While William Rehnquist was making a name for himself in Republican circles in Phoenix,

another Arizona man had been rising through the ranks. I accept your nomination with humbleness, with pride, and you and I are going to fight for the goodness of our land. Thank you. Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona before it was even a state. He had run his family's department store before running for the Senate in the 1950s and had become a popular voice advocating individual freedoms, limiting the federal government's power, and he launched the modern conservative movement.

They say Barry Goldwater is against civil rights. He opposed social welfare programs and believed school integration should be left to the states. Laws are not the whole answer. The real answer is in the hearts of men. In 1964, when he was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate, he became the foil to the Democrats Lyndon Baines Johnson. A strong voice, a clear choice, Goldwater. — Goldwater and Rehnquist were part of the so-called Arizona Mafia, a small political

powerhouse that had made a name for itself within the Republican Party. And there was a lot at stake. LBJ was promoting the Great Society, which was a radical government plan to end poverty and racial injustice. Earlier in 1964, the 24th Amendment was ratified, outlawing taxes as a condition for voting in federal elections. And the Civil Rights Act would be passed that summer.

— Renquist convinces Goldwater that he should oppose the Civil Rights Act that is going to become law, and he should vote against it in the United States Senate. Now, in this summer of 1964, the Civil Rights Bill is the law of the land. In the words of the president, it restricts no one's freedom so long as he

respects the rights of the president, it restricts no one's freedom so long as he respects the rights of others. The momentum was in the Democrats' favor heading into the election. But the National Republican Party had a plan. It would become known as Operation Eagle Eye. The director of Eagle Eye, Charles Barr, told the media, including the New York Times, that he expected to challenge or deter from voting 1.25 million voters all across the country. Republicans had already claimed that the 1960 election, four years earlier, was stolen. Operation Eagle Eye was the response.

It was the same blueprint Rehnquist and his Republican colleagues were accused of using in Phoenix, dating back to at least 1958. Send mailers to Democratic precincts. If the mail got kicked back, challenge those potential voters at the polls. The Republican Party was not at all hiding what they were trying to do at the time. So on the day of the 1964 presidential election, the New York Times reported Republican officials saying 100,000 trained Republican workers

were in 35 key cities across the country. Operation Eagle Eye was underway. Voters by the hundreds perplexed and downright scared were snarled yesterday in partisan poll watching Miami Herald. You may have heard of something called Operation Eagle Eye. This is a campaign ad that Democrats released before the 1964 election. Well a better name for it would be Operation Evil Eye.

Mexicans and Negroes complained to election officials that they had received anonymous phone calls warning them of challenges at the polls. The New York Times. It has been launched in nearly every state in the union. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was asked to investigate handbills distributed today in Necro precincts to create delays, confusion, and fear. Well-dressed persons will not be challenged. Warning! You may be voting illegally. Only the kind of guy you can buy

for a buck or a bottle of booze. Washington Post. I hope you will not be one of its victims." By this time, Goldwater's vote against the Civil Rights Act at William Rehnquist's urging had become a symbol of just how far right his conservative values were. Even within his own party, Goldwater was seen by some as too extreme and Republicans started abandoning him. But not Rehnquist. Now he's basically screwed up because of the instructions and tutoring that he's been getting from this great constitutional expert, William Rehnquist. And so by the time of the election, there's only a few people that are helping address stamps

and raise money and so forth. And Rehnquist is the guy. Just to be clear, Operation Eagle Eye did not deliver Goldwater to the presidency. The voice of the people was heard in the land. 68 million citizens of the United States go to the polls to exercise their cherished franchise, and an overwhelming mandate is handed to Lyndon Baines Johnson, who becomes 36th president of the United States.

The man who was thrust into office through the hand of tragedy— Goldwater loses, big time. Rehnquist writes his concession speech. — Congratulations on your victory. I will help you in any way that I can toward achieving a growing and better America and a secure and dignified peace. The role of the Republican Party will remain in that temper. — Goldwater went back to the Senate and was re-elected until he retired in 1987.

The run for president marked the height of his national fame. But William Rehnquist was nowhere near the pinnacle of his. — Here's the thing that I think is important to know. William Rehnquist was a very complex human being. He does not care what anyone else thinks of him. He is willing to be defeated on an issue rather than compromise in a belief that later he will be able to prevail. Rehnquist was playing the long game. He was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971 at just 47 years old. During his confirmation hearings, the allegations of voter suppression came up,

but there wasn't enough evidence to support them. Then in 1986, when he was being confirmed for chief justice, new witnesses stepped forward, including a former assistant U.S. attorney named James Brosnahan, who along with an FBI agent was called to the Arizona precinct. — I saw William Rehnquist, who was known to me as an attorney practicing in the city of Phoenix. He was serving on that day as a challenger of voters. That is to say, the conduct and the complaints had to do with his conduct. — Even with the new eyewitness accounts, it was their word against Rehnquist. As to harassing or intimidating, I certainly do categorically deny, any time, any place. William Rehnquist served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 33 years until his death in 2005.

When he was Chief Justice, more federal laws were struck down than any previous court. He was considered one of the most successful Chief Justices ever, all while staying true to his conservative values. In 2000, he was part of the majority that voted to end the Florida election recount, handing a presidential victory to Republican George W. Bush. Today, Phoenix, Arizona, where William Rehnquist rose through the ranks of conservative politics, has changed a lot. Maricopa County has been one of the fastest growing counties in the country, and its diversity

helped flip the state for Joe Biden in 2020. Since then, Maricopa County has been at the center of election fraud conspiracies. Arizona is refusing to remove illegals from voter rolls? A cauldron for conspiracies and misinformation. They think that this election is being stolen from the… And the story about Rehnquist challenging voters in Phoenix that went national with Operation Eagle Eye has become like many stories about mass voter challenges across the country. 700,000 challenges to voters across the country so far. A mass voter challenge lawsuit in Georgia was dismissed.

Will there be voter fraud? All of a sudden in certain states they found all these votes. The Pigpen Project that's filing all of these mass challenges in the state of thousands of voter registrations in Denton County. Eagle AI or as its founder calls it Eagle Eye is software developed by a Columbia County Georgia doctor named John W. Rick Richards Jr. Eagle Eye promises to streamline and speed up the process creating challenges at volume. There has been no evidence to support claims by Republicans that the 2020 election was stolen

or that Democrats stuffed the ballot box with illegal votes. Nevertheless, Republicans have said they plan to have hundreds of thousands of poll watchers across the country in November. Democrats plan to have election observers as well. Tova and others say the real harm to democracy is preventing eligible voters from casting ballots. I think in a lot of cases that the organizers have to work harder to get over some of these obstacles and get people to voting. I suppose a tiny silver lining of what's going on today is that organizers are really taking a tremendous lead in trying to protect and support our democratic process. Coming up, we go to Michigan to see how people in one immigrant community

built power in another way. I'm Audrey Sparshue from Detroit, Michigan, and you're listening to Through Life. I love your show. Thank you for helping us to make sure we don't forget about things that have happened in the past. This message comes from The New Yorker. Season three of In the Dark investigates a crime committed by U.S. service members and asks why no one was punished for it. The season uncovers a failure of justice that has never been fully understood. Listen to In the Dark wherever you get your podcasts. This message comes from The Lever, producers of the chart-topping history podcast Master Plan. Named a must-listen by The Guardian,

Master Plan investigates the 50-year plot to legalize corruption in America. Listen to Master Plan wherever you get podcasts. wherever you get podcasts. Michigan is now a must win for Vice President Kamala Harris. Good afternoon Detroit! The Democrats are worried about Michigan. Michigan, y'all know how to win. They have seen erosion in the numbers there. I'm thrilled to be back in the great state of Michigan

with thousands and thousands, and I mean lots of thousands of... Michigan was always going to be a battleground state. It flipped for Trump in 2016, then it flipped for Biden in 2020, and in this election, one group could play a crucial role. Michigan's Arab-American population tops 300,000, the largest in the U.S.,

and in Dearborn, that the largest in the U.S. And in Dearborn, that community is now the majority. And they could potentially help decide the outcome of the election. Arab Americans aren't the biggest voting bloc in Michigan. Around 300,000 residents identify as having Middle Eastern and North African ancestry. But these are numbers that can decide the state. And right now, it feels like their vote is up for grabs. — What's unfolding in the Middle East is the primary concern

for tens of thousands of voters in that battleground state. — Free, free, free Palestine! — Free, free, free Palestine! Free, free, free Palestine! Since the October 7th, 2023, Hamas led attacks on Israel and Israel's war on Gaza. Arab Americans in Michigan have been putting pressure on the Democrats, whose policies they blame for feeding the violence by supporting Israel. Michigan is getting a lot of attention this year, like it does every time a presidential election rolls around. But the work the state's Arab

Americans have done to build political power began decades ago in the neighborhoods and factories that helped make the state reliably democrat for years, where labor organizing laid the groundwork for political organizing. Part Three. The Strike. Ismail Ahmed arrived in the U.S. at 10 years old aboard a massive overseas freighter that he was working on. The ship had come from Egypt, and when it docked in New York City— — He walked off that ship.

Nobody asked him a question. — This is his son speaking, also named Ismail Ahmed. By the 1950s, Ismail's father had moved the family to Detroit, because what they had found in Michigan was community. When the Ahmed family arrived, thousands of Arab Americans already lived in the Detroit area. Many of them landed in Dearborn, which is 20 minutes outside of Detroit, in a neighborhood called the South End. And as this small community grew in numbers, it would also grow its political power.

The South End neighborhood is this little sliver of land sandwiched between the Fort Rouge factory and the city of Detroit....in what is now the city of Dearborn, to build the crown jewel of American industry, the Fort Rouge plant. It was the largest industrial complex in the world. You can see it from miles away. At its height it had 90,000 workers. Ismail Ahmed is a longtime activist in Dearborn and the co-founder of the Arab Community Center

for Economic and Social Services. You would put glass and steel at one side and out would come cars, full-blown cars. The factory was the whole reason a community had blossomed in Dearborn. In the 1920s, when it opened, it drew people from across the country. And if you were newly arrived to America and you were told that you could make $5 a day,

you would get on a train and you would go to Detroit. This is Sally Howell. She's a professor of history with a focus on Arab-American studies at the University of Michigan, Dearborn. It was the auto industry that pulled these Arab-Americans just like it pulled so many other immigrants to Detroit.

Dearborn was a city of immigrants. Ismael's neighbors, a blend of Lebanese, Yemeni, Polish, Italian, Irish, and German people. Ishmael was part of a thriving community that was both Arab and American. But during his childhood in the 1960s, this idyllic little slice of American life between the Rouge factory and Detroit came under threat. There was another company that was located just right there on the other side of the neighborhood. The Edward C. Levy company would take the byproducts from the Ford factory and use it to make asphalt and other materials for building roads. And so this was a very successful relationship between Levy and Ford.

These two companies weren't always the best neighbors to Dearborn residents. They would drive these big trucks through the south end between the factories. Open bed trucks just with this this industrial waste just spewing from the top of it. People started protesting. Saying you can't drive your big trucks through here. So the mayor of Dearborn, his administration, they were tired of the complaints of the people in this neighborhood. So City Hall thought, hey, we could kill two birds with one stone here. The city decided to rezone the neighborhood for heavy industry.

Expand industry, make Ford and Levy happy, and push all the people who lived there, who had been complaining, out of the South End. And so Dearborn's Arab Americans knew they had to fight back. The city would send a bulldozer to tear down a house, and you would have a human chain of women and their children blocking the street, not allowing the bulldozer to go by. They were really trying to defend the neighborhood one block at a time or one house at a time.

— At the same time that the South End was rallying to save their neighborhood, Dearborn's Arab auto workers were getting active in the factories too. But it's a sunny day in Dearborn. I started working in the Rouge plant. A brand new car eager to go is on the way to its new owners. Built to order. Built to order. Built to order. No order, no people.

I started out on the assembly line. Now, at the time that you were working, what do you remember about general working conditions? Horrible. These are interviews from people who worked inside the auto plants. The state of the assembly lines was often dire. Ten hours, seven days a week. Not even sustainable with very severe hand, arm, leg injuries. I mean, there's safety conditions don't even exist. And it stays the way it is now, then the workers are going to steadily be losing life and life.

And the company doesn't lose anything. And in all the plants, Arabs and African-Americans had the very worst jobs. They were being discriminated against. They weren't allowed to complain or make trouble. In some ways, we always had much in common with the African-American community. During the Civil Rights Movement,

when Detroit was a hotbed of Black activism, movements started in the factories organized by black workers. Movements like DRUM, the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. I got to do what I do to be in here. I got to do what I do to be in here. These movements wanted better working conditions and more rights for Black workers. And they folded Arab auto workers into their organizing too.

And so this alliance was formed in the factory. By the 1970s, Dearborn had changed. There were now second and third generation Arab Americans. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act had loosened immigration restrictions, and conflicts in the Middle East had led more Arabs to resettle in Dearborn, including Palestinians. There were more university students from Arab countries too. And all of these changes were, in turn, changing the resistance in the South End. They were all resisting the city of Dearborn.

That was sort of the thing that pulled everybody together. You know, this was in the wake of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, where Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai. So people sort of transposed the conflict into the neighborhood, you know, okay, so we're being displaced. Israel's occupying the West Bank and taking this territory away from us. And then here in America, the one neighborhood where we have a foothold, people are trying to take things away from us here too.

In 1971, the community decided to take their fight to the courts. Two years later, in August 1973, a district judge in Michigan issued his ruling. The court finds that the city and its officials have taken plaintiff's property without due process of law. officials have taken plaintiff's property without due process of law. It was a huge win for the community. But just a few months after the court's decision, Arab Americans and Dearborn would be rocked again. This time on a global level. It is an all out war. On October 6th, 1973, Arab forces from Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack to recapture territories that Israel had taken in the 1967 war. President

Nixon has instructed Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to contact all parties involved in the fighting and try to arrange for a ceasefire. While the fighting rages in the Middle East, supporters of both sides in this country are engaging in fundraising efforts. Back in Dearborn, the 1973 war was big news. And shot through the community like a tidal wave. Dearborn knew it had to be heard. They started organizing big demonstrations in Dearborn to call attention to what was happening

overseas. And by this point, they had momentum. Ismail and other activists could build off the organizing infrastructure they created while saving the South End neighborhood. We all worked in different auto plants and agreed to put together an Arab Workers Caucus. The first meeting of the Arab Workers Caucus had about 70 representatives from nearly every auto plant in Detroit. It was during this meeting they decided to focus their attention on one major action, the funding of what Ismael called the murder of their brothers and sisters back home. The Israelis are running out of reserve weaponry. And they must turn toward the United States for assistance.

— The Arab Workers' Caucus found out that their local UAW had bought over $300,000 in Israeli bonds, and the national union owned even more. This meant that Ismail and the UAW's estimated 15,000 Arab members were spending money to support Israel in what they saw as a violent occupation. So these are your dues. How is the UAW spending your money? And so the divestment was the only right thing to do.

They took out an ad in the Detroit Free Press. Purchase of Israeli bonds is regarded by these workers similarly as would a UAW investment in racist South Africa would be regarded by black workers. The organizers of the Arab Workers Caucus gained support and backing not by just focusing on what was going on in the Middle East, but also how workers in the plants were being treated. In this way, they were able to amplify their organizing power. And how did the UAW respond?

We petitioned the UAW and got no progress. Then we found out that Leonard Woodcock, the president a walkout strike, and with that call for a demonstration. A call to action. Rank and file union members and their supporters are called on to participate in a peaceful assembly to protest this arbitrary purchase by the UAW of Israeli bonds on the occasion of an award ceremony for UAW President Leonard Woodcock. So they organized a wildcat strike. A wildcat strike. Basically a strike by unionized workers without the permission of the union.

So Ismail, along with other members of the Arab Workers Caucus, began organizing in their respective plans. We spent over a month organizing in all of those plants. And in the days leading up to the strike, workers handed out flyers and even placed ads in local newspapers. Is the UAW leadership acting in the interest of its members? Michigan Chronicle. On November 28th, 1973, around 2,000 workers at the Dodge main plant walked out.

Now, I was laid off during that time, so I wasn't in a plant and I was outside the gate of Dodd's truck when I watched workers come out and they weren't only Arab workers. There were Black workers too. So it was again one of those situations of Black-Brown solidarity. Later that evening, protesters gathered outside the building in Detroit where the award ceremony for UAW President Leonard Woodcock was taking place. No more bombs, no more bonds. Outside about a thousand Arabs picketed the building entrance protesting the UAW purchase

of some $750,000 in Israeli bonds. Woodcock snuck into the building through a back door to avoid the protests. While accepting his award, he announced that the UAW was trying to work with labor unions in Israel and Egypt in the hopes of bringing them together for a peaceful resolution. But later, UAW's Secretary-Treasurer, Imal Mazy, said that the Israeli bonds were a good investment and that air protesters were aligned with communists. The workers who protested and walked out of the factory put their jobs on the line, put their livelihoods at risk for this bigger political cause. In many cases, many of the workers still didn't quite understand what was going on, to be frank,

because of language issues and other things. But they took the chance anyway. I mean, it's a job threatening, it was family threatening for them. And yet they felt strongly enough to do it. And the Wildcat Strike left its mark. I think for two reasons. One, it was big enough so it would have meant the mass firing of, you know, critical workers.

And also, they didn't want to make a bigger deal out of this than it already was. And so after that, we began to talk more with the UAW. Leadership changed. And I think convinced them that, yes, they should get rid of the bonds. The UAW did sell off some of its bonds, it didn't sell them all, and their wildcat strike was so successful that they really did become a threat to the leadership of the UAW in the period. In fact, an Arab American became the president of the UAW. It was an incredibly empowering moment in the history of Arab American activism.

It was the Arab community becoming its own and being recognized as a political force. They started running for city council. They started running for the school board. They started demanding that the city pay attention to the needs of their newly arriving immigrant community. In 2023, Dearborn became the first Arab-majority city in the U.S. Ismail Ahmed knows that his community has political power. And he's seen it become a driving political force, not just in Dearborn, but across the entirety of the state, and now the country. There's not a ticket in Michigan

that doesn't have an Arab American on it, ever. It's just part of the formula. That's it for this week's show. I'm Randabdabd Fattah. And I'm Ramtin Arab-Louis. And you've been listening to Throughline from NPR. This episode was produced by me. And me and. Lawrence Wu. Julie Kane. Anya Steinberg. to Thru Line from NPR. This episode was produced by me, and me, and, Lawrence Wu, Julie Kane, Anya Steinberg,

Casey Miner, Christina Kim, Devon Kadiyama, Sarah Wyman, Rachel Horowitz, Lena Muhammad, Irene Noguchi. Thank you to Johannes Durgi, Nina Puchalski, Punit Motiwala, Edith Chapin, and Colin Campbell. Thanks also to the Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Maryland. Voiceover work in this episode was done by Devin Katayama, Emily Muir, Kenny Colston, Jonathan Bastion, Sandhya Dirks, Ryan Muzzy, Sarah Wyman, Lawrence Wu, and Anya Steinberg. Fact checking for this episode was done by Kevin Voeckel.

The episode was mixed by Maggie Luthar. Music for this episode was composed by Ramteen and his band, Drop Electric, which includes Navid Marvi, Sho Fujiwara, Anya Mizani. And finally, if you have an idea or like something you heard on the show, write us at throughline at npr.org. Thanks for listening. Dignity Memorial Dignity Memorial Dignity Memorial

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