The UAW-Ford Local 600 building in Dearborn is not just the home of its members — it’s a living, breathing history museum that pays homage to the struggles and victories of nearly 80 years since its charter on Aug. 25, 1938.

Photographs adorn the walls of a long interior hallway, depicting key events in the history of Local 600 and the Ford Rouge complex. The strong black-and-white images are right in step with all the landmark UAW challenges and triumphs before and since the first national agreement with Ford Motor Company in June 1941, just mere months before Japan dragged the United States into World War II in the Pacific.

Detroit and the Local 600 members soon became part of what then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the “Arsenal of Democracy.” Six years before the Local 600 charter was granted, with the country in the midst of the painful Great Depression era, the infamous Hunger March took place when union organizers, unemployed auto workers, and their families gathered near the Fort Street Bridge leading into Dearborn. Local 600 records say that when marchers reached the city limits, they were met with resistance by local police with tear gas and water from fire hoses — and unfortunately, some bullets. Five lives were lost March 7, 1932.

The ramifications of that fateful day along with the legendary Battle of the Overpass on May 26, 1937 — when four men attempting to distribute union organizing leaflets were attacked by Ford security forces — are considered by most to be the two key historical events that galvanized the original Local 600 members into the powerful voice the group became. This led to the first national union agreement with Ford four years later. What was a bitter beginning has over the years turned into a fruitful partnership.

CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS

Because of that rough and rocky road, Local 600 leaders and members are considered a bedrock group when it comes to historical labor rights. But the organization is equally proud of its support of civil rights in America and across the globe — then and now. “Since the inception of this Local, we’ve had better diversity,” says current Local 600 President Bernie Ricke. “We’ve always made sure there was diversity in leadership. We’ve sent an African-American to national negotiations on every contract since 1941 (Shelton Tapp was the first and only black man at the 1941 negotiations). “Other Locals do it now, but at least the first 40 years, I think we were the only Local doing it. So we were at the forefront of being able to work together and live together and play together. I’m proud of our reputation going back to the very beginning of being a very progressive Local.”

Local 600 paid to bring Rosa Parks to Detroit for her first trip to attend a Local 600 meeting in the late 1950s. In 1955 Montgomery, Ala., the civil rights pioneer refused to give up her seat on a bus and helped ignite the civil rights movement. Parks eventually moved to Detroit to make it her permanent home. “It was important to us because of the huge role she played in the civil rights movement,” Ricke says about Local 600’s leadership at that time. A group of Local 600 carpenters later carved an all-wood replica of the bus where Parks made her stand. The wooden piece — which is about 6 feet long — remains proudly on display today in the Reuther Hall portion of the building.

Another monstrous civil rights moment came when, in 1990, during his first trip to the United States, freed South African prisoner Nelson Mandela made his only visit to an industrial site at the Dearborn Assembly/Rouge complex. Mandela received a UAW membership card during the visit and proudly announced to the large crowd, “I am now a member of the UAW.”

PROGRESSIVE PROGRAMS

“It was so wonderful that (Mandela) felt such strong ties to us that he came here to give us support,” says Peaches Anderson, who began her UAW-Ford career in 1969 at Local 400 in Highland Park, Mich., assembling tune-up kits. Now at age 72, Anderson serves as president of UAW Local 600’s Retired Workers Chapter. Anderson says the chapter is yet another example of Local 600’s progressiveness.

Almost 15,000 retirees are members, and Anderson is available full time to counsel and educate members on retirement issues. Her office is the only known full-time, on-site support center for retirees at any Local. And since the 1970s, no less than a halfdozen Local 600 members have gone on to serve on the UAW International Executive Board: Buddy Battle, Ernie Lofton, Bob King, Gerald Bantom, Jimmy Settles, and Rory Gamble. “We’ve had a lot of leadership move on,” Ricke says, “and have a lot of influence on the union the last 40 years or so.”

Freelance writer Tom Lang is based in Michigan.