Abstract In 2007, Reuther archivist William LeFevre conducted an oral history on the organization Focus: HOPE, interviewing its co-founder, Eleanor Josaitis, and longtime supporter Senator Carl Levin. The civil and human rights organization Focus: HOPE emerged in March of 1968 in the aftermath of the 1967 Detroit riots. Its aims were and are to overcome racism and poverty and foster social justice, racial integration, and urban employment through food distribution, human relations, and job training...

Abstract Focus: HOPE emerged in March of 1968 from the ashes of the 1967 Detroit riot. The largely volunteer civil and human rights organization has created an astonishing variety of innovative programs aimed at overcoming racism, poverty and injustice by fostering integration and bringing the urban unemployed into the economic mainstream, programs which have become a model for urban revitalization worldwide. The Focus: HOPE Collection contains a wide variety of sources, including correspondence,...