Vice President Kamala Harris is a political trailblazer as the first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to win a major party’s nomination for president.

But she follows a decades-old tradition of Democratic presidential candidates when she visits Detroit this Labor Day, a holiday marking the end of summer and, historically, the day presidential campaigns launch into overdrive for the fall stretch.

Big union cities such as New York, Chicago and Pittsburgh have also attracted big-name politicos on the first Monday in September but no city has been more closely associated with the American labor movement than Detroit. Combine that with Michigan’s status as a battleground state and the appeal for Democrats to visit Detroit on Labor Day is clear.

Though Detroit has celebrated Labor Day since the late 1800s, it’s only in about the last 75 years that Labor Day has drawn presidential candidates to the city.

Until after World War II, “labor in its contemporary form hadn’t risen to the level that it has now,” said Marick Masters, a professor emeritus of business at Wayne State University in Detroit. “As it grew in power, particularly in the Democratic Party, Democratic politicians wanted to pay allegiance to the labor movement” by making holiday visits to Detroit and other union strongholds, he said.

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Here are five notable Labor Day visits to Detroit by past presidential candidates.

Harry S. Truman, 1948

Harry S. Truman visited Detroit as an incumbent president but a political underdog.

He would go on to defeat Republican New York Gov. Thomas Dewey in what was seen as one of the greatest political upsets in U.S. history, and considered Detroit his “lucky city,” the Detroit Free Press reported at the time.

That’s because he had also campaigned in the Motor City on Labor Day in 1944, as a candidate for vice president to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who that November won an unprecedented fourth term.

The local AFL and CIO affiliates, which sometimes competed to organize the same workers, had made a joint invitation to Truman at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. That was viewed as a healthy sign for labor unity, though the entities would not merge until 1955.

“A free and strong labor movement is our best bulwark against communism,” Truman, who was accompanied by his daughter Margaret, told a large crowd in Cadillac Square in Detroit.

At the time of Truman’s visit, union members were still outraged by the 1946 passage — over Truman’s veto — of the Taft-Hartley Act, which took effect in 1947 and banned wildcat strikes, closed shops, and mass picketing, among other restrictions on union activities.

Taft-Hartley “is only a foretaste of what you will get if Republican reaction is allowed to grow,” Truman told the crowd in Detroit.

Inflation was an election issue then, as it is today. Truman in 1946 had vetoed a bill to extend price controls, introduced under Roosevelt, saying he did not believe the legislation would prevent prices from rising.

Adlai Stevenson, 1952

Not every Democrat who campaigns for president in Detroit on Labor Day goes on to win.

Adlai Stevenson, who lost to Republican Dwight Eisenhower, is a case in point.

As reported in the Detroit Free Press, the crowd of 25,000 gave “cheers of anticipation” when Michigan Gov. G. Mennen “Soapy” Williams introduced Stevenson, the governor of Illinois, as “a great friend of labor.”

But those cheers “became much milder as Stevenson expounded his views on labor relations,” and the crowd “began disintegrating,” the newspaper reported.

“You are not my captives and I am not yours,” Stevenson told the largely pro-union audience. “I intend to do exactly what I think right and best for all of us — business, labor, agriculture, alike. You, too, will do exactly what you think best at the election.”

Though he called for changes to Taft-Hartley, Stevenson rejected unionists’ labeling of it as a “slave labor” law, the Free Press reported.

“We cannot tolerate shutdowns which threaten our national safety,” Stevenson said. “The right to bargain collectively does not include the right to stop the national economy.”

Stevenson returned to Detroit on Labor Day in 1956, launching another unsuccessful campaign for the White House.

John F. Kennedy, 1960

The crowd in Cadillac Square was estimated at 60,000 when the charismatic senator from Massachusetts, on his way to a razor-thin victory over Vice President Richard Nixon, launched a withering attack on the Eisenhower administration.

John F. Kennedy said that stagnant growth under the Republican president had cost each American $7,000.

As reported in the Free Press, Kennedy said the labor movement “is people,” and the enemies of labor are the enemies of “all progress.”

“The two cannot be separated,” Kennedy said. “The man and the party who opposes a decent increase in minimum wage is not likely to be more generous toward a badly underpaid school teacher.”

Democratic State Chairman Neil Staebler called Kennedy “the best campaigner to hit Michigan since Franklin D. Roosevelt,” who had visited Detroit, but never on Labor Day.

Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964

Michigan Democratic delegates generally, and union members specifically, were vocally unhappy with Kennedy’s selection of Lyndon B. Johnson as his running mate at the 1960 Democratic National Convention.

But both labor activists and Johnson — who didn’t visit Michigan once during the 1960 campaign — were willing to put those memories behind them when Johnson came to Detroit as president, less than one year after Kennedy was assassinated.

Reporters marveled at the willingness of Johnson, accompanied by his wife, Lady Bird, to mingle with the huge crowd outside what was then the Sheraton Cadillac Hotel, shaking as many hands as possible, amid high security and understandably nervous Secret Service agents, the Free Press reported.

In a bipartisan gesture, Detroit labor leaders invited Republican Gov. George Romney to join Johnson on the speaking platform.

“Hospitality is not limited to those with whom we share all our views, as this occasion, and the visits of other presidential candidates, will bear out,” Romney said.

Barack Obama 2011

President Barack Obama’s Labor Day visit to Detroit was unusual in that it did not occur during an election year.

With another year still to go in his first term, Obama visited Detroit amid persistent high unemployment to celebrate his 2009 stimulus package that included an $81 billion federal rescue of General Motors and Chrysler, which is now known as Stellantis.

He was drumming up support for a major jobs plan he was about to present to Congress, where the U.S. House was Republican-controlled.

Speaking at a GM parking lot next to the Renaissance Center in Detroit, Obama credited the auto industry with the creation of the middle class in Michigan and across the nation.

“Our economy is stronger when workers are getting paid good wages and good benefits,” Obama said. “Having a voice on the job and a chance to get organized and the chance to negotiate for a fair day’s pay … is the right of every man and woman in America, not just the CEO in the corner office, but also the janitor who cleans that office.”

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on X, @paulegan4.

Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward won the opening race of IndyCar’s double-header weekend at The Milwaukee Mile, beating Team Penske’s title challenger Will Power.

After starting sixth, 25-year-old O’Ward surged forward and controlled the race for 133 of 250 laps in the first IndyCar race staged at the track since 2015.

“We had a really tough weekend last weekend at Portland, and this is a great way to bounce back,” said O’Ward after taking his third victory of the season by 1.8215s.

“The car was fantastic; it was getting a little gnarly in the end, but glad I could bring it home for the boys.

“They were fantastic on pit stops, the strategy was amazing. We worked on the car really hard yesterday to really have something to fight with today.”

A late caution during a pit cycle shook up some of the frontrunners, including Conor Daly, who ended up on the podium and gave Juncos Hollinger Racing its best-ever finish in third.

AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci was fourth, followed by Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou in fifth, with Power closing his points lead to 43 points as a result (514-471). 

While the initial start was waved off, polesitter Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske) was able to quickly gap the field once the green flag waved on lap 2. The biggest mover out of the gate was Daly, who used the high lane to take several three-wide passes and charge from 25th up to 15th in the opening 10 laps. 

The frantic start quickly settled in, with McLaughlin holding a 0.9095s lead over Linus Lundqvist (Ganassi) on lap 20 while David Malukas (Meyer Shank Racing) ran third as they began to catch backmarkers. 

Deeper in the field saw Josef Newgarden, who qualified second but dropped nine starting spots as a result of penalty for an engine change, advance past Marcus Ericsson.

The continued navigation of backmarkers saw McLaughlin’s lead continue to accordion over Lundqvist, before the Swede moved ahead with a Turn 1 pass on lap 49.

The lead for Lundqvist expanded to 4.6209s over McLaughlin by lap 61 as the first pitstop cycle began, Lundqivst pitting a lap later than McLaughlin and Malukas on lap 66. 

The green flag pit stops wrapped up on lap 71, with O’Ward leading by 0.6525s over Colton Herta, McLaughlin cycling out third with Lundqvist in fourth. 

Herta took the lead shortly before a caution on lap 83 was necessitated by Katherine Legge spinning in Turn 2. McLaughlin then went off-strategy in electing not to pit, so led the field the lap 95 restart as Herta and O’Ward battled for second.

O’Ward pushed past McLaughlin with an inside pass into Turn 1 and began to pull away before the next round of stops, resuming with the lead this time over an early-stopping Newgarden.

But his promising race came to an end after contact on lap 147 battling Ericsson for second, with the Swede spinning to the inside and taking Newgarden with him into the barriers. Following closely beind, Palou squeaked by without incident. 

Josef Newgarden, Team Penske Chevrolet, pit stop

Photo by: Geoffrey M. Miller / Motorsport Images

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O’Ward led the field to the restart on lap 157, with Palou in second, followed by Power. The positions were unchanged until the next caution was triggered by Herta losing his left-front tyre during the next pit sequence.

Power briefly became the new the leader, ahead of Daly, Lundqvist and O’Ward, until he pitted from the lead on lap 195. With Daly and Lundqvist following in for service, O’Ward assumed the race lead, Ferrucci slotted into second and Power resumed in third. 

O’Ward brought the field to the green flag on lap 203 an was untroubled by Ferrucci, who was shuffled back two spots when Power dived to the inside with 28 laps to go as Daly also got by. 

Palou too momentarily passed Ferrucci, before he fought back and reclaimed fourth.

O’Ward’s advantage over Power dipped as low as 0.3s with 13 laps to go, but the Mexican never faced a serious challenge before taking the flag.

IndyCar Milwaukee Race Results

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – Nearly seven weeks after a woman was found dead on the side of a Minneapolis church her family is still searching for answers. 

What happened?

Felisha Smith, 57, of Minneapolis, disappeared after she signed herself out of The Estates at Chateau, a long-term care facility where she lived, her family said. 

She made her way to Chicago Lake Liquors on East Lake Street, they said. The next day, July 14, a pastor at Spirit of the Lord Church found her body on the side of the building, they said. 

“[She was] covered with a blanket from the neck down, pants removed,” said her daughter Shari Smith. 

Shari Smith said the medical examiner’s office said her mother was sexually assaulted before she was killed. She said when she identified her body she noticed trauma on her mother’s face. 

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office hasn’t released a cause or manner of death.  

What the family is saying

“She was a loving, kind, compassionate mother of nine children and just a wonderful, beautiful soul,”Shari Smith said. 

She said her mother survived a shooting in 2014 that left her with a traumatic brain injury, and she fears someone may have taken advantage of her. 

“My concerns are for community awareness, that the public be made aware that there’s someone on the loose who is doing horrific things,” Shari Smith continued. 

What police are saying

Minneapolis police called the death suspicious, but didn’t elaborate. 

They haven’t made any arrests.