Four of the men killed in the Ford Hunger March lie side by side in the north end of Woodmere Cemetery in southwest Detroit. On 7 March 1932, with hundreds of thousands out of work across Michigan, at least 3,000 unemployed autoworkers marched from Detroit toward the Rouge plant in Dearborn with a list of demands. The march was organized by the Communist-backed Unemployed Councils. Dearborn police met it with tear gas and clubs, fire engines sprayed cold water from an overpass, and at the plant the police and Ford's own security men opened fire. Joseph York, Kalman Leny, Joseph DeBlasio and Joseph Bussell, a teenager, were killed, and dozens more were wounded. Bussell was shot during the retreat, after Ford's security chief, Harry Bennett, had driven up and been hit by a rock. A grand jury indicted no one. On 12 March a funeral procession estimated at 25,000 to 60,000 people, under a slogan attacking Ford and Mayor Frank Murphy, followed the four coffins to Woodmere. A fifth marcher, Curtis Williams, died of his wounds that August. Woodmere refused to bury him because he was Black. His family had him cremated, and an airplane scattered his ashes over the Rouge.
Getting there
42.3008, -83.1378
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop is an audio tour guide app that tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
