Victories at Ford

 

The Negro Organizing Committee, right, helped the UAW organize African-American workers during the 1930s.

At Ford, race was used as a divisive anti-union strategy, and the company even tried to create a race riot during the 1941 strike. But leaders from civil rights organizations such as the NAACP circled the plant in sound cars, which encouraged most of the 2,000 strikebreakers inside the plant to come out and stand with union supporters.

It worked. Jubilant Ford workers,right, celebrate their right to vote on union representation in 1941.