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Writer's pictureEmmanuel Mehr

April 20, 1948 (76 years ago today): UAW President Walter Reuther Shot and Wounded, Survives


A black-and-white photograph of white man Walter Reuther standing at a podium in front of many microphones pausing for a thought while delivering a speech.
Marion S. Trikosko, “[President Walter Reuther]," January 23, 1958

April 20, 1948: Labor leader and United Auto Workers (UAW) President Walter Reuther survived his second of two assassination attempts, demonstrating the tremendous scale of social tensions over the mid-century labor movement. He attended a UAW meeting that evening. Upon arriving home and attempting to eat dinner, he was shot through the kitchen window four times in the right arm and once in the chest. In the subsequent days, the New York Times reported that a $116,800 aggregate reward was offered for the attempting assassin. The paper described the attack as “at once contemptible and alarming—contemptible because of its cowardly nature, alarming because it suggests the possibility of a feud over conflicting ideologies. Whatever may happen in totalitarian states, we will tolerate no political assassinations in this country.” Just over a year later, Walter Reuther’s brother and labor organizing colleague Victor Reuther survived a similar assassination attempt. In both cases, the attackers were not charged.

 

Citations: Nelson Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther: The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 271, https://archive.org/details/walterreuthermos00lich; “The Attack on Mr. Reuther,” New York Times, April 22, 1948, 26, https://nyti.ms/4a68CNo; “BIG FORCE HUNTING REUTHER ASSASSIN,” New York Times, April 22, 1948, 22, https://nyti.ms/3TTeML9; Marion S. Trikosko, “[President Walter Reuther speaking at a lectern at an United Auto Workers (UAW) convention, Detroit, Michigan],” photograph (Detroit, MI, January 23, 1958), https://lccn.loc.gov/2022887118.

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