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Workers Vanguard , ' . Soul Power or Workers Power? The Rise and Fall! o! the League of Revolutionary Black Workers Crippling three major Chrysler call to end racial discrimination and Ken Cockrel, John Watson, Mike Ham- beyond such pitiful reforms would vig- facilities in this past summer's wave to appoint a black assistant prose- lin, General Baker and John Williams orously protest cases of racial dis- wildcats of (including the first auto cutor in the investigation and a self- (among others) coalesced shortly after crimination, while calling for the elim- plant takeovers since the historic sit- congratulatory pat on the back that the the rebellion around a community- ination of company supervisory downs of the late thirties), the Detroit bloodshed had not entered the plants.' oriented paper, the Inner City Voice. personnel from the shop floor and for working class has once again demon- The conflagration of July 1967 was Some among the original Inner City workers control of production. (Inci- strated its capacity for militant action. the bloodiest, and one of the last, of Voice group, such as John Watson, had dentally, the auto companies have since It was among the largely black work a series of anti-cop ghetto riots that earlier been around the ex-Trotskyist hired large numbers of black foremen force of these inner-city plants same buried the liberal illusions of the civil Socialist Workers Party, while others without changing one iota the oppres- that the League of Revolutionary Black rights movement. This uprising was came from a Maoist background. They siveness of the plants.) Workers was born in the late 1960's. the product of a combination of cir- were held together by a vague, but Similarly, while militants must op- Unlike other black nationalist cumstances. the hand, the On one militant, determination to create a pose racially and sexually discrimi- groups, the League insisted on the cen- "progressive" Reuther UAW bureauc- "black Marxist-Lemnist party." Main- natory aspects of existing seniority trality of the working class and, in the racy and its liberal Democratic taining their adherence to nationalist systems, and call for a sliding scale beginning, seriously oriented toward "friends in the White House" had done ideology, they nonetheless saw that of wages and hours to provide jobs organizing at "the point of production." nothing to Detroit's stem recurring black workers occupied a key role in for all, they must also recognize that The LRBW and its various auto factory massive auto-related unemployment, the American economy and the working seniority systems are a primitive form groups (DRUM, FRUM, ELRUM) have during the 1957-58 which recession class. As Watson pointed out in his pam- of job security that must be defended. since disappeared, inevitable victims reached 19.5 percent, and topped 15.2 phlet, To the Point of Production: And although class-conscious workers of their own internal contradictions. But percent at the height of the next re- "Our analysis tells us that the basic must pay special attention to the needs it is important for working-class mili- cession in 1961. March More damning power of black people lies at the point of the more oppressed sections of the tants to examine the League and its still was the unemployment figure for of production, that the basic power we proletariat, they would seek to unite evolution, which clearly reveal the in- Detroit blacks in the same 1961 have is our power as workers. As blacks and whites by simultaneously compatibility of nationalist and pro- percent period— 39 and a phenomenal workers, as black workers, we have raising demands which directly benefit letarian politics. historically been, are now, essen- 78 percent for black youth as com- and all workers. tial elements in the American economic pared to 33 percent for youth overall! Despite the demands' nationalist sense. ... This is probably different Reuther Betrayals Pave On the other hand, for the first inspiration, a of white from these kinds of analysis which say number workers the Way time in almost two decades large num- where it's at is to go out and organ- did support the walkout. But the DRUM bers of young blacks were being hired ize the so-called 'brother on the street. leadership consciously avoided organ- into the auto plants to replace older It was no accident that such a group It's not that we're opposed to this izing them. "No attempt was made to white workers. Seniority lists at developed in Detroit, where blacks have De- type of organization, but without a more interfere with white workers Most troit's Chrysler plants invariably long been an important element in the show solid base such as that which the work- of the white workers reported to work a gap for the period 1953-1965 or so. ing class represents, this type of or- auto plants. At first courted by Henry after they saw that it was safe for them ganization, that is, community based Ford as a counter-force to unionism, Thus, the upsurge in militancy coin- to go through the gate. Those who organization, is generally a pretty long, the vast majority nevertheless refused cided, as in 1943, with rising expecta- stayed out did so for various stretched-out, and futile development." reasons. tions on the part of the to serve as Ford's scabs in the crucial oppressed Some believed in honoring picket lines, 1940 River Rouge organizing strike. black minority (now a majority). and a few were sympathetic" (The South As in 1943, the UAW response was Lead Wildcats The increasing population of blacks DRUM, ELRUM End, 23 January 1969). hypocritical do-nothingism. After 43 in the city and the plants after World Though the UAW responded with blacks had been killed by cops and War n contributed to the pressure on As a result of its orientation, the heavy red-baiting (which led DRUM to National Guardsmen, Reuther offered a the Reuther bureaucracy to support the Inner City Voice group reportedly soon deny that it was indeed communist.'), union volunteer crew for cleaning up early civil rights movement— a move- attracted a group of young black work- the wildcat resulted in the reinstate- debris on bloody 12th Street— an offer ment characterized by the non-violent ers from the Chrysler Hamtramck As- ment of five of the fired seven (an he never fulfilled. protest politics of Martin Luther King sembly plant-Dodge Main. Disgusted The Black Panthers' acclaim of and well within the framework of with the bureaucratic union politics black lumpen street youth as the so- Reuther's "labor-Democratic alli- they had experienced, these workers cialist vanguard was made ludicrous ance." But despite Reuther's social- crystallized around an ICV member in democratic past and demagogic "pro- the plant to form the Dodge Revolu- gressive" image, the "red-haired tionary Union Movement (DRUM). A wonder" failed to apply even these wildcat over line speed-up in May 1968, minimal liberal capitalist policies to involving both black and white workers, the widespread racism permeating the resulted in racist disciplinary actions lower levels of his own bureaucracy. being applied overwhelmingly to the This situation led aspiring black black militants. bureaucrats to set up such opportunist The high level of nationalist senti- formations as the Trade Union Leader- ment among the recently hired young ship Council. The TULC was founded black workers, the isolation of the in 1957 by a group of lower-level blacks largely older, Polish bureaucracy and in the UAW apparatus (like Buddy Battle the absence of any other alternative of Ford's River Rouge Local 600) and leadership opened the way for a spec- black labor diplomats like venerable tacular and rapid success by DRUM in social democrat A. Philip Randolph, establishing itself as the leadership of whose main concern was simply to the 60 percent-black work force at garner a bit of face-saving indepen- Dodge. Within six weeks of its first dence from the Reuther machine, while newsletter distribution, DRUM organ- Ron March maintaining its liberal politics. ized a highly effective boycott by the open At the same time, the combination of DRUM supporter and founding ICV black workers of two nearby bars that Reuther's hypocritical liberalism and member was not rehired). In addi- refused to hire blacks. Three weeks tion, the impotent pressure-group politics of DRUM'S reputation was firmly es- later, in the crucial pre-changeover tablished; it King and the black bureaucrats pro- continued publication of period, they led a three-day wildcat a weekly newsletter, vided fertile ground for the spawning of went on to con- which shut down the plant and held solidate its support more militant black nationalist poli- into an organiza- a rally of 3,000 workers in the plant tional structure tical currents and organizations. De- in September and parking lot. shortly decided troit is the home of Elijah Muhammad's to run a candidate for union office. Nation of Islam, the Republic of New Besides calling for reinstatement of Taking Africa (RNA) and the Pan-African Con- seven workers fired in the May walk- advantage of a special elec- tion for gress; scene of the Black Economic out, DRUM demanded an end to union trustee of Dodge Local 3, DRUM ran Ron Development Conference and the "Black DETROIT news and company discrimination, and de- March in a campaign designed Ken Cock re I to demonstrate Manifesto" (April 1969); and battle- manded, in particular, more upgrading "DRUM power and black solidarity," ground for the race riot of 1943 and and apprenticeship openings for blacks. on such demands as: by the reality the ghetto rebellion of 1967.
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