Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution (Updated Edition) (South End Press Classics Series)
by Dan Georgakas
published
July 1st 1998
by South End Press
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binding
Paperback, 254 pages
isbn
0896085716
(isbn13: 9780896085718)
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 174)
Read in June, 2007
This is an engaging and highly readable study of Black Marxism in 1960s and 1970s Detroit. It mostly centers on the leading militants of the League for Revolutionary Black Workers and the various "RUMs"--Revolutionary Union Movements that cropped up in auto plants in the 1960s, in direct response to the terrible working conditions and racism in the United Auto Workers, but also connecting shop floor conditions to a wide range of other issues. Unlike other studies which tend to romant...more
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One of those books that keeps you thinking and dreaming for years after...
The book starts with a high profile case of the time, a jury trial where the defendant is found innocent of killing his boss at the auto plant - not because he didn't pull the trigger, but because, in the eyes of the jury of peers, as well of the judge, the boss deserved it. That's like, page 3, and it never lets up.
More utopian than Crimethinc could imagine, but unlike them (or the equally vapid 'revolutionaries' of ...more
The book starts with a high profile case of the time, a jury trial where the defendant is found innocent of killing his boss at the auto plant - not because he didn't pull the trigger, but because, in the eyes of the jury of peers, as well of the judge, the boss deserved it. That's like, page 3, and it never lets up.
More utopian than Crimethinc could imagine, but unlike them (or the equally vapid 'revolutionaries' of ...more
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
people interested in labor, race, urban and American issues; and anyone from the Detroit area
The authors focus on a local, radical social group that organized primarily Black workers in the auto industry (GM, Ford and Chrysler) during the late 60s and early 70s. The Group focused on is the League of Revolutionary Black workers, and as someone who grew up in a suburb of Detroit, I can't believe I never heard of them. That says a lot. The writing is kind of like the League- it's not pretty and sometimes you wish it was better, but it does what it needs to and gets its point across, whethe...more
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My friend Josh directed me to this book and I ended up assigning it to my Law and Social Movements class. It is a really compelling history of some amazing resistance tactics in Detroit that actually gives a person a sense of some of the good and radical (not reformist) work that lawyers can do. It also gave me a much stronger sense of the history of union racism and worker resistance in car manufacturing.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
recommends it for:
Everyone
So fantastic. I never knew about the unions of Detroit during the 1950s-1970s until I read this book. It's supposedly a landmark. I loved it and would recommend it to anyone interested in learning the US history we weren't taught in public high school. :-D
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Read in February, 2008
An excellent history of an important movement. The lessons for activist strategy were also very useful. This book was a great counterpart to the other Detroit labor history book that I recently read.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in January, 2005
recommended to Joolie by:
Anarchist Book Group (RIP)recommends it for: anti-authoritarians of all stripes
Such a fantastic book. A in depth history of detroit's union history from the perspective of black radicals. Accessible, intersting, challenging.
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if you read only one book about detroit in your lifetime, make it this one.
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Read in March, 2005
Fucking awesome. A must-read for anyone interested in radical history.
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Read in October, 2008
Pretty interesting and helpful for my job. People who care about Detroit might want to read it.
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