On 2 May 1968, 4,000 workers in the Hamtramck auto plant in Detroit walked out against speed up. Several Black strikers met in a bar across the road, and founded the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement to organise Black workers.
One of the strikers was General Baker, who had been organising within the factory since the Detroit rebellion the previous year:
"We learned from the Detroit rebellion. I keep saying that over and over again, because that’s the main lesson we got. When the Detroit rebellion took place, and the National Guard and 101st Airborne was sent in, and they imposed curfew, if you got sick, you couldn’t go to the doctor. If you got hungry, you couldn’t get no food. But if you had a badge from Chrysler, Ford or General Motors, you could get through the police line, the National Guard line, the army line, all of them to take your butt to work. The conclusion we draw from that was that the only place in this society that Black people had any value was at a point of production. That’s why after the rebellion, we turned all our efforts into organising inside the plants. Believe it or not, like an accident of history in one year from that time, DRUM was born."
Two months after their foundation, the group organised their first wildcat strike.
DRUM inspired similar groups at other plants which later came together to become the League of Revolutionary Black Workers.
#DodgeRevolutionaryUnionMovement #BlackLabor #BlackOrganizers #BigThree