Joe Bussell died on March 7, 1932 when police and corporate security fired upon unarmed young hunger marchers. The march was the result of desperation. No city was hurt more during the Great Depression than Detroit. 10,000 children huddled in the bread lines every day. It was Ford’s brutal corporate mercenaries aka “service department” that opened fire on these young marchers in Miller Road. As children went hungry, Henry Ford was the richest man in the world, but wages for those lucky enough to have a job had dropped 37%.
The Ford Hunger March sought shorter work days, so more people would have jobs, an end to racial discrimination, and winter hunger relief among their eleven demands. See http://www.pennfedbmwe.org/?zone=/unionactive/view_article.cfm&HomeID=95500 The City of Detroit gave the marchers a permit. However, when they reached the Dearborn border, the march was told to turn back.
They refused. When the marchers pressed forward, tear gas and water cannons opened fire. Some of the protesters responded with rocks and handfuls of mud. The Ford corporate security and Deaborn police opened fire. Dozens were wounded, four died on the spot: Joe Bussell age 16, Joe DeBlasio, Joe York, and Coleman Leny. Curtis Williams died somewhat later.
About 70,000 marched to the funeral, where the four young men, boys really, were buried in one grave within sight of the Ford factory. The fifth,Curtis Williams, could not be buried with his friends because even in death, there was discrimination against the African American. His ashes were scattered across the River Rouge Ford Plant by an airplane. The song “All my trials, Lord” does come to mind.
As we consider limiting bargaining rights, limiting the right to organize, and blaming labor for the problems actually caused by deregulation and corporate greed, how about a history lesson. The protections gained for workers were hard fought, and dearly purchased, just ask Joe Bussell and his fellow marchers who died 80 years ago in the streets of Dearborn, Michigan.
The photo I posted here was posted on my facebook page by his sister, and I join her in asking that you not forget Joe, nor give away what he gave his life seeking – a better, fairer life for all. Much of what I posted above is based on writing by Chris Mahin, but some comes from my family history.
The apparently softer, easier way of “balancing the books” on the backs of the poor will cost us all dearly – and our children more dearly. The right choice is to cleanup the corporate giveaways and loopholes in the Tax Expenditure Budget – and give the Big Dig Debt back to the legislature to create its own line item and pay for transparently. The wrong choice is to pander to corporations, and instead squeeze the poor, take jobs from the blind, transporation from the poor, and turn indigent defense into a “greet ’em and plead ’em assembly line”.
Sadly, those who forget history all too often are forced to repeat it. As wages fall, and living wage workers are replaced with faceless outsourced minimum wage earners (what I call “Hyatization”, what was done to the Hyatt Housekeepers who trained their replacements and then were thrown away) – for this Detroit girl, the history of the Ford Hunger March and these hard fought battles is still real, not forgotten, and a warning.
As the government continues its failed wars, social and economic programs, more dissent builds with the over-burdened, over-regulated people. Security forces, wallowing to federal funds provided weaponry strike out at a peaceful protest and the bloodbath ensues. The media blames the protestors (read the first reports of the Kent State killings in the Boston Globe.) The real terror begins.
“I don’t know who to vote for in the primary. Santorum and Romney are so close in the polls…” –Overheard in supermarket
Why was Ford security involved? I saw nothing from this article to indicate the marchers had trespassed on company party.
Also, how does what this article says about wages square with what I’ve heard about Ford being generous? I’ve heard that he his workers enough that they’d be loyal to the company and that they would be able to afford the cars they made.
Think
Blackwater, Xe,or whatever they call themselves now. Corporate control of government security forces is not new. To make it legal, just deputize the corporate goons.As for Ford, it is true that Ford started the “$5.00 day” and improved living conditions for workers and their families in Ford run towns but this came at the cost of social control. The Brazil adventure was the most visible.
There are plenty of books on the virtue imposed by Ford company management as the price of decent wages.
But, that was a long time ago. Certainly, you’ll be treated better at the FEMA camp…
“The more there are riots, the more repressive action will take place, and the more we face the danger of a right-wing takeover and eventually a fascist society.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.