History’s most consequential heroes aren’t always the most powerful. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II played important parts in toppling communism. But it was a Polish electrician, climbing a shipyard fence in an act of defiance, who inspired a movement. On Sunday night, that electrician, Lech Walesa, spoke to a crowd of 500 in Detroit.

In his remarks, Walesa offered an optimistic vision. “Among all the generations, we’ve got the biggest opportunity for peace, for prosperity and for development,” he said.

Walesa, born in 1943, worked as an electrician at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland. Early on, he was active in the worker’s rights movement, organizing a rally in 1970 to protest food prices. Polish police and military reacted forcefully, killing more than 30 p

See Full Page