Grievances
While DRUM’s comparisons to the hell of enslaved plantation life are rife, the group also makes rhetorical use of another era of racial oppression and genocide with life under Nazi rule. Foremen and superintendents are compared to the Gestapo for their cruelty and alleged championing of themselves as a master race, the publication insinuating that one of the men even keeps a portrait of Adolf Hitler in his office. Next comes comparisons to Klansmen which yields similar results. While DRUM’s grievances are genuine, some of these comparisons appear unequal and may have scared off potential supporters for their brashness. Then again, DRUM does not deal in subtlety and that is its strength.
It is apparent that at all levels of the automobile production process, from raw materials to market, workers are exploited by their supervisors, particularly the Black proletariat. This issue tackles a variety of problems, including the false promises of the Hoover Road training plant and the fact that Black welders are denied skill trade classification and top pay due to racism. The alliance of the UAW and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is met with skepticism as Black workers’ demands were merely paid lip service to by the Alliance to gain influence in Detroit. DRUM notes the Teamsters' Mafia affiliations and the imprisonment of their leader Jimmy Hoffa due to fraud and jury tampering in tandem with UAW President Walter P. Reuther’s deceptions as a performative ally of Black workers. Reuther paid huge sums to organizations like the NAACP and the Urban League, groups DRUM derides as “Uncle Tom”, and made public appearances at Civil Rights marches while continuing to support the exploitation of Black workers.
Explicit mention of international worker solidarity and a desire to seriously reform or rebuild American governance shows an expansion of DRUM’s socialist vision. At times DRUM’s message was myopic, understandable given the harsh conditions its members faced daily. With limited resources and under the constant threat of violence or job loss, DRUM labored to spread a basic message of Black worker solidarity which eschewed the abstract verbosity of Marxist-Leninist intellectualism for the immediacy of action. DRUM called on Black workers to mobilize in response to racial oppression and economic exploitation which affected not only their wages and working conditions in Hamtramck but those of the working poor in the entire world. The mission of DRUM and other American labor organizations is clearly ongoing; much of what is read from these pages from fifty years ago rings true today. But theirs is also a message of defiance and solidarity whose banner is still carried to this day and will be into the future.
DRUM recalls another racist incident at the plant, ironically also making use of racist language against Latinos, and asks Black workers to not beg for their rights but demand them; “we must demand the respect to be recognized as BLACK men and women''. Other Black worker movements DRUM is allied with are mentioned, including the United Black Brothers autoworkers in New Jersey and the Paragon Steel workers at Ford in Mahwah, NJ. These groups are alleged to have similar demands to DRUM which are listed as 1) the dismissal or transfer of supervisors with records of discrimination, 2) reinstating wrongly fired workers 3) more Black representation in labor relations and personnel departments 4) no loss of pay or job for fighting for better conditions, amongst other points. This issue notes that Black workers are super-exploited and that DRUM is explicitly anti capitalist. DRUM describes itself as the vanguard of Black workers' struggle, aided by both ideological supporters and financial contributors in their mission. More criticism is lobbed against UAW president Reuther for his lack of commitment to Black auto workers. On a micro scale, the oppression of Black workers is evident in the trial of Ken Cockrel, the attorney and legal advisor to DRUM and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW), for contempt of court. Some of DRUM’s successes are showcased with the news that charges had been filed by the National Labor Relations Board against Chrysler Corporation and the UAW for racist exploitation of Black workers, a crucial first step for both recognition and realization of DRUM’s demands.