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How Detroit reflects America

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Accessibility links Skip to main content Keyboard shortcuts for audio player Open Navigation Menu --> Newsletters NPR Shop Get NPR+ Close Navigation Menu Home News Expand/collapse submenu for News National World Politics Business Health Science Climate Race Culture Expand/collapse submenu for Culture Books Movies Television Pop Culture Food Art & Design Performing Arts Life Kit Gaming Music Expand/collapse submenu for Music Tiny Desk New Music Friday All Songs Considered Music Features Live Sessions Podcasts & Shows Expand/collapse submenu for Podcasts & Shows Daily Morning Edition Weekend Edition Saturday Weekend Edition Sunday All Things Considered Up First Here & Now NPR Politics Podcast Featured Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Fresh Air Wild Card with Rachel Martin It's Been a Minute Embedded Get NPR+ More Podcasts & Shows Search Newsletters NPR Shop Get NPR+ Tiny Desk New Music Friday All Songs Considered Music Features Live Sessions About NPR Diversity Support Careers Press Ethics How Detroit reflects America On Independence Day, NPR's Don Gonyea returns to the city where he started his career to reflect on the auto industry, the Great Migration and the people who built Detroit. National How Detroit reflects America July 4, 20265:03 PM ET Heard on All Things Considered By Henry Larson , Don Gonyea How Detroit reflects America Listen &middot; 3:41 3:41 Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed "> <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5847035/nx-s1-9836534" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript On Independence Day, NPR's Don Gonyea returns to the city where he started his career to reflect on the auto industry, the Great Migration and the people who built Detroit.
− Sponsor Message DON GONYEA, HOST: I have spent the better part of my life in Detroit, where I am right now, and I started my career covering the auto industry and culture here.
+ Sponsor Message Transcript DON GONYEA, HOST: I have spent the better part of my life in Detroit, where I am right now, and I started my career covering the auto industry and culture here.
And on America's birthday, the intertwined history of these two threads here have a special resonance. In the 1920s, during the Great Migration, someone's mom or dad or grandparent came up north looking for a better life, and a good paying job in the auto industry in Detroit was a much sought after ticket to make dreams reality. FELICIA FORD: 'Cause this is where my grandfather started his new life and his freedom. GONYEA: That's Felicia Ford. She knows this Detroit story because it's her story, too. FORD: My father and his uncles probably wouldn't have been born without being able to get a job, come to Detroit with the wage, build a family, have a house and be prosperous. GONYEA: Hundreds of thousands of Black Americans fleeing the Jim Crow South came to Detroit, arriving at the Michigan Central train station. A great many, like Felicia's grandfather, Roosevelt, were drawn by the promise Henry Ford made to pay workers in his car factories $5 a day. FORD: He made his way to a millwright, skilled trades. Back then, they didn't have millwright school. You just brawn. You just had the toughness to do a millwright job. GONYEA: Detroit's assembly lines gave the city its identity worldwide. And as manufacturing grew, so too did the region. Felicia Ford has followed in her grandfather's footsteps. She, too, works at Ford. She designs parts for electric vehicles. FORD: A millwright would move and build machines that made the cars. I am designing the parts that would be in that factory. GONYEA: So Roosevelt Ford's legacy continues to unfold. What about the cultural legacy of the auto industry from that era? So we're in the grand foyer of the Detroit Institute of Arts. Right ahead of us are the Detroit Industry frescoes depicting Detroit's automobile industry as painted by the great Diego Rivera, the great muralist. Rivera painted these murals in 1932 and 33. Thanks to these massive frescoes, you too are inside that factory, feeling the noise, the heat, the rhythms, the dignity of the work. And the faces - so many faces, each one distinct. They are each finely drawn, and he has created a multi-ethnic array of workers. That is Rivera's idealized view. You didn't have this kind of racial integration working side by side, almost hand in hand, like he shows them. What he does that I think is so great is that you can make out all of these individual faces. Each of these workers here, as represented by Rivera, would have a story to tell. The frescoes tell a complex story, beautiful and maybe hopeful for those like me back here today, a story of the future and of struggle and of aspirations not yet fulfilled. In other words, an American story. One of my very favorite places in the whole world. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Copyright &copy; 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
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