[26] He also helped organize and finance the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, delivering remarks from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial shortly before King gave his historic "I Have a Dream" speech on the National Mall.

[32] He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995 by President Bill Clinton, who remarked at the ceremony, "Walter Reuther was an American visionary so far ahead of his times that although he died a quarter of a century ago, our Nation has yet to catch up to his dreams.

Valentine would facilitate debates every Sunday for his sons, training them to think on their feet about social issues of the day such as yellow journalism, child labor, women's suffrage, and civil rights.

[41] In 1927, at the age of 19, Reuther left Wheeling for Detroit and argued himself into an expert tool and die maker job at Ford Motor Company that required 25 years experience.

With that employment assurance, the brothers embarked on a three-year adventure, first bicycling through Europe, then working in the auto plant in Gorky, in the Soviet Union where the unheated factories were often 30–40 degrees Fahrenheit below zero.

Finally, after being gone from home for almost three years, they found work for passage on the steamship SS President Harding to San Francisco and hurried back to Detroit where their brother Roy was already deeply involved with organizing autoworkers.

Walter later stated the world tour taught him that "all people long for the same basic human goals of a job with some degree of security, greater opportunity for their children, and of course, freedom.

Upon his return he became president of newly formed Local 174 on Detroit's west side and with brother Victor, led the first successful strike against the automotive giants at Kelsey Hayes, which supplied brake drums and wheels to Ford Motor Company.

Victor manned the sound car and encouraged the workers to fight back, which they did by sling-shotting door hinges from the factory roof and turning fire hoses on the police in the 16-degree Fahrenheit winter night.

"[58] In 1950, Reuther negotiated and signed with Charlie Wilson, chief executive officer of General Motors, the Treaty of Detroit, an historic five-year labor contract that, in exchange for a commitment not to strike, gave rank-and-file workers better wages, health care, and pensions.

His main enforcer was Harry Bennett, who led a 3,000-man Security Department for Ford Motor Company, whose mandate was to intimidate, beat, and fire any worker who showed signs of favoring unionization.

[62] Barely a month after the Chrysler signing, Reuther got permission from the City of Dearborn to pass out handbills titled, "Unionism, not Fordism" on public property at Gate Four of the giant Ford River Rouge Complex.

The pummeling continued as four or five men beat him in and out of parked cars, until a streetcar arrived with union women to pass out leaflets and the thugs turned their attention to viciously attack them.

We believe that without disturbing present aircraft plant production schedules we can supplement them by turning out 500 planes a day of a single standard fighting model by the use of idle automotive capacity.

[69]A week after receiving the plan, on December 30, 1940, President Roosevelt wrote William S. Knudsen, chairman of the War Production Board, "It is well worthwhile to give a good deal of attention to this (Reuther) program.

[71] General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler all opposed the Reuther Plan because they wanted the government to build new plane and tank factories that could be sold to them at giveaway prices after the war.

By 1943, Chrysler President, K. T. Keller, reported that his company had converted 89% of its machine tools to wartime production, leading Washington Post publisher, Phil Graham, to state that meant Reuther was 89% right.

"[75] In 1953, President Eisenhower wrote in a letter to Reuther, "When I last addressed a CIO Convention, I came to thank you for your magnificent performance in World War II in supplying the planes and tanks and ships and arms.

[26] He also helped organize and finance the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, delivering remarks from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial shortly before King gave his historic "I Have a Dream" speech.

The purpose of the demonstration was to protest racism, segregation, and the brutality inflicted upon civil rights activists in the South as well as the discrimination facing African-Americans in the North such as inequality in hiring, wages, education, and housing.

The committee, notably Bayard Rustin, agreed to move the site on the condition that Reuther pay for a $19,000 sound system so that everyone on the National Mall could hear the speakers and musicians.

On March 9, 1965, two days after Bloody Sunday, where civil rights marchers were beaten by state police at the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, Reuther sent a telegram to President Johnson, reading in part:Americans of all religious faiths, of all political persuasions, and from every section of our Nation are deeply shocked and outraged at the tragic events in Selma Ala., and they look to the Federal Government as the only possible source to protect and guarantee the exercise of constitutional rights, which is being denied and destroyed by the Dallas County law enforcement agents and the Alabama State troops under the direction of Governor George Wallace.

This shameful brutality by law enforcing agents makes a mockery of Americans’ concepts of justice and provides effective ammunition to Communist propaganda and our enemies around the world who would weaken and destroy us.

[124] At that time, Chavez's struggle for workers' rights was little known to the American public, but Reuther's visit garnered national media attention, making it difficult for the growers to ignore the striking grape pickers.

[132] In 1967, three years before the first Earth Day, Reuther established the Department of Conservation and Resource Development, later headed by Olga Madar, to combat pollution, including automobile emissions.

Reuther supported the establishment of Redwood National Park, writing President Johnson in 1966:The preservation of a significant stand of these magnificent trees will be a truly monumental step, in the implementation of the 'Great Society.'

[140] In 1957, during a speech before the annual convention of the NAACP, Reuther coined the United States Senate "the graveyard of civil rights legislation", and called for the abolition of the body's filibuster.

The assailant “fled in a bright red four-door Ford sedan, police said.”[145] Reuther, who did not lose consciousness, cursed his attacker as he was initially being treated by his next-door-neighbor, a doctor, as he lay on the kitchen floor.

Whether building a fish ladder for the trout underneath their bridge or planting a Japanese Garden for May that she could view outside their bedroom window, he enjoyed and relaxed by working on outdoor projects on his Paint Creek property, located outside Rochester, Michigan.

[32] He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995 by President Bill Clinton, who remarked at the ceremony, "Walter Reuther was an American visionary so far ahead of his times that although he died a quarter of a century ago, our Nation has yet to catch up to his dreams.