145 - Louis Jones, Field Archivist, Detroit

The Kitchen Sisters Present

The Kitchen Sisters & Radiotopia

Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2020

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

Louis Jones, Field Archivist, is a Keeper. For 27 years he has worked building and caring for the largest labor archive in North America—the Reuther Library at Wayne State University in Detroit. Home to numerous union and labor collections from around the country, the Reuther Library also actively collects material documenting Detroit’s civil rights movement, women’s struggles in the workplace, the LGBTQ Archive of Detroit and more.

Born in New York City, the grandson of a Pullman porter, Louis Jones takes us through the archives with stories of the UAW, Cesar Chavez, Utah Phillips, A. Philip Randolph and the Civil Rights Movement, the 1967 Detroit uprising, and how archivists are examining and re-imagining their roles in the midst of Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Special thanks to the Reuther Library at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Nancy Beaumont and the Society of American Archivists (SAA); Paulina Hartono; The National Endowment for the Humanities; and supporters of The Kitchen Sisters Productions.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Radio Tophia, welcome to the Kitchen Sisters Present.
0:04.0	From PRX.
0:05.0	We're the Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nicki Silva.
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0:53.4	Go to radiotopia.fm slash donate. Thank you so much for listening and for sharing
0:59.9	with your friends. Today, the Kitchen Sisters present Louis Jones, Field Archivist Detroit. My name is Louis Jones. I'm an archivist at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.
1:20.0	We have the Walter Rutho Library of Labor and Urban Affairs.
1:23.7	That's what we're known for at Union Records.
1:25.7	I'm the field archivist there and so it's seriously
1:28.4	convinced people to give us their stuff, you know.
1:30.8	So that's what I do. I go out and do various leads or if I just have an idea in my
1:35.2	head it's so long as it fits within our collecting scope.
1:39.2	We have the American Federation of Teachers the Airline Pilots Association, the American Federation State County Municipal
1:44.5	Employees, United Other Workers.
1:47.0	Have you ever asked yourselves what the UAW is?
	...

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