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REMEMBERING THE 1932 FORD HUNGER MARCH: DETROIT PARK HONORS LABOR AND
ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY
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Paul Draus
March 1, 2024
The Conversation
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_ When the Ford workers Hunger March to deliver a list of 14 demands
to Henry Ford became the Ford Massacre . . . and ultimately led to the
organization of the Rouge plant by the United Auto Workers. _
A Dearborn policeman knocked unconscious was the first casualty of
the 1932 Ford Hunger March in Detroit and Dearborn., Walter P. Reuther
Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State
University/Detroit News Burckhardt.
The intersection of Fort Street and Oakwood Boulevard in southwest
Detroit today functions mostly as a thoroughfare for trucks and
commuters.
However, as you sit idling at the stoplight waiting to cross the
bridge over the Rouge River, you might glance to the side and see
something unexpected in this heavily industrialized area: A sculpture
of weathered steel reaches toward the sky alongside a spray of flowers
and waves of grasses and people fishing.
This inconspicuous corner, now the home of the Fort Street Bridge Park
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of a river, a region, a historic conflict and an ongoing struggle.
If you pull over, you’ll enter a place that attempts to pull
together threads of history, environment and sustainable
redevelopment.
Signs explain why this sculpture and park are here: to honor the
memory of protesters who met on this very spot on March 7, 1932
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marching up Miller Road to the massive Ford Rouge River Complex
located in the adjacent city of Dearborn.
As a sociology professor
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I have a strong interest in how the history of labor and industrial
pollution have influenced Detroit.
I’m also interested in the potential for environmental restoration
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forward [[link removed]].
To understand this potential future, we must first recognize and honor
the past.
[An iron sculpture commemorates industry and sits as the centerpiece
of the Ford Street Bridge Park.]
The Fort Street Bridge Park is located along the banks of the Rouge
River in southwest Detroit. Paul Draus, CC BY
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14 demands
In their book “Labor’s Untold Story,” published in 1955,
journalist Richard Boyer and historian Herbert Morais quote a
contemporary account of the Hunger March:
_It was early, it was cold when the first of the unemployed Ford
workers (many of whom had been laid off the day before) arrived at
Baby Creek Bridge. They were a small gray group and they stood
slapping their sides, warding off the cold, and wondering if they
alone would come._
Others soon joined them: Black and white, men and women, immigrants
and American-born. They united to deliver a list of 14 demands to the
auto tycoon Henry Ford
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whose US$5 daily wage for his workers was once considered
revolutionary.
[Police with bats follow Hunger March marchers on March 7, 1932.]
Hunger March protesters demanded better pay and working conditions at
the Ford Rouge plant. Detroit News Staff via Walter P. Reuther
Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.
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Among the marchers’ demands: jobs for laid-off workers, a seven-hour
workday without a pay reduction, two 15-minute rest periods a day, an
end to discrimination against Black workers and the right to organize.
This crowd of several thousand marched up the road on one of the
coldest days of winter. They were greeted at the Dearborn border with
clouds of tear gas, jets of cold water and a shower of bullets.
It was then that the Ford Hunger March became the Ford Massacre.
Detroit Workers News Special 1932: Ford Massacre via Workers Film &
Photo League International.
The seeds of a labor movement
Beth Tompkins Bates, in her book “The Making of Black Detroit in the
Age of Henry Ford
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wrote that “The response of the Ford Motor Company on that day shot
holes in the myth that Ford cared about his workers, that he was
different from other businessmen.”
[Black and white portrait of a young man with wavy hair]
Portrait of Joe Bussell, killed by Ford Servicemen during the 1932
Ford Hunger March in Detroit. Bussell’s relatives contributed to the
Fort Street Bridge Park. Walter P. Reuther Library
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At the end of the day, four marchers lay dead, while many others were
injured and hospitalized. A fifth would die months later of his
wounds.
More than 30,000 people showed up for the dead marchers’ funerals.
The violent reactions of Ford security and Dearborn police during the
march were widely condemned.
In an effort to address the stain on its public image, the Ford family
first commissioned then expanded a major work by Mexican muralist
Diego Rivera
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that was to become the centerpiece of the Detroit Institute of Arts,
known as the Detroit Industry Mural. Rivera, a known communist
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efficiency and the racialized inequality of the industrial process.
Ford’s battle against unions was ultimately a failure. Five years
after the Hunger March, the so-called “Battle of the Overpass
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organization of the Rouge plant by the United Auto Workers.
The Ford Hunger March, long forgotten by many, is now acknowledged as
an important catalyst [[link removed]] in the
growth of the union movement.
Struggle for sustainability and justice
The fight for sustainability and environmental justice is another
major theme of the park, which chronicles the history of the Rouge
River, including the day in 1969 when the oily water infamously caught
fire
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The hellish image of burning rivers helped motivate the signing of the
Clean Air
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Clean Water acts
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well as the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency
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The air and water in and around Detroit are much cleaner today
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than they were 1969. But this doesn’t change the fact that the area
where the park sits bears a disproportionate burden of the pollution
generated by the region’s industrial production, which includes
cement plants, gypsum and aggregates processors, salt mining and
asphalt storage, as well as a steel mill and petroleum refinery.
Another donor to the park
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is Marathon Petroleum Corporation whose Detroit Refinery occupies the
adjoining neighborhood. Though Marathon has invested in the
development of green spaces on its own property, the refinery has also
expanded in recent years, further degrading the local environment
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Research shows that workers benefit from unionization
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directly but indirectly. But recent labor victories
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by the UAW, Hollywood writers and other organizers stand in stark
contrast to the long-term erosion of union membership
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Today, the Fort Street Bridge Park in southwest Detroit serves to
remind us of the complexities of history and how apparent progress in
one area may be followed by a setback somewhere else. It also
represents how the spirit of community, unbroken, keeps pushing for
something better.[The Conversation]
Paul Draus [[link removed]],
Professor of Sociology; Director, Master of Science in Criminology and
Criminal Justice, _University of Michigan-Dearborn
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This article is republished from The Conversation
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the original article
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* Labor
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* unions
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* organizing
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* environment
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* Detroit
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* class struggle
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