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- Title:
- Michael Honey interview
- Interviewee:
- Honey, Michael K.
- Interviewer:
- Williams, Charles Thomas
- Date Created:
- 2017-10-04
- Role:
- Faculty
- Department:
- Liberal Studies; School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Science
- Subjects:
- Martin Luther King Jr. League of Revolutionary Black Workers March of Washington civil rights Vietnam War conscientious objectors labor National Committee Against Repressive Legislation Southern Conference Educational Fund Herbert Aptheker William Kunstler Carl Braden Highlander Folk School Pete Seeger Harry Bridges ILWU Local 23 Evergreen State College diversity research curriculum planning
- Biography:
- Michael Honey was born in 1947 in Lansing, Michigan. He grew up in Williamston, Pontiac, and Grand Rapids in Michigan, and Toledo, Ohio. His father was a World War II veteran and urban planner-turned professor who was born into an English farming family in Michigan. His mother came from a French-Canadian working-class family in Detroit. This background had a profound influence on Dr. Honey's views, his affinity for union workers, and his later academic interests. Honey attended Oakland University, then an experimental, humanities-centered college in southeast Michigan, from 1965 to 1969. Amid the escalation of the Vietnam War, he received approval for his conscientious objector status when he graduated. After college, he went to Kentucky and subsequently spent six years in Memphis to serve as the Southern Director of the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation. He completed his graduate degrees at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and at Northern Illinois University, where he focused his research on labor history and developed his first book, Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights. He has since authored several other books, including Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign. He came to University of Washington Tacoma in 1990 as a founding faculty member. Currently holding the Fred and Dorothy Haley endowed professorship of Humanities, he teaches African-American and labor history. During his time at UW Tacoma, he has also served as the Harry Bridges Endowed Chair of Labor Studies.
- Description:
- In the interview, Honey recounts his student life and early career. He begins with early influences from his own "union family" and postwar Michigan, where workers were well-represented by strong unions, such as the United Automobile Workers. He describes his college experience at Oakland University, where he met his mentor and professor, Henry Rosemont, who opened his eyes to the situation of the Vietnam War and led him to register as a conscientious objector. He recalls the 1967 Detroit riot and speaks of Martin Luther King as a recurring theme in his life and career. Honey then discusses the period after college, when he went to the South and became actively involved in the civil rights movement--working on cases of Angela Davis and others. He talks about how these experiences fueled his desire to attend graduate school at Howard University and Northern Illinois in order to study and write about African-American history, labor, and civil rights in the South. In the second half of the interview, Honey discusses how he arrived at University of Washington Tacoma. He recalls his efforts building relationships with the community and prominent Tacoma figures like Tom Dixon, a civil rights leader and founding director of the Tacoma Urban League. He notes the success of programs at such locations as the Washington History Museum and the Allen AME Church. As a founding faculty member, he helped to shape the first courses offered at UW Tacoma, and he incorporated music into his history courses, drawing connections to Pete Seeger, the Highlander Folk School, and others. On the importance of community relationship, he highlights decisions over the years to hire faculty who were invested in the population surrounding the UW Tacoma campus. As the session nears its end, he remarks on the challenges of having to build an institution while teaching and conducting scholarship simultaneously and laments over the waning legislative support for higher education.
- Location:
- United States--Washington (State)--Tacoma United States--Kentucky--Louisville United States--Michigan--Detroit United States--Tennessee--Memphis United States--Michigan--Lansing
- Type:
- Sound; Text; StillImage
- Format:
- cpd
- Preferred Citation:
- University of Washington Libraries, University of Washington Tacoma Library, UWTOH201702