The conference registered the deepening conviction among Chicano activists that liberation can not be achieved within the framework of the capitalist system.

A wide spectrum of political ideologies and tendencies were present. It is significant that despite the deepgoing differences between various participants and the hostility that has marked some of their relationships, a comradely atmosphere prevailed throughout the entire weekend.

The main conference discussion was carried on a series of workshops. The two principal ones were titled: Ideology--What Direction Will the Chicano Movement Take? and Organization and Action--How Shall We Get There?

In both sets of workshops many panelists and participants from the floor spoke of the need for an anticapitalist perspective. Among those taking this stand were several leading figures from La Raza Unida parties (RUP) in the Southwest.

There was strong sentiment for independent political action in opposition to the Republicans and Democrats. Perhaps the largest single grouping at the conference were the Raza Unida party activists, who argued effectively that the partido be recognized and supported as the political arm of the Chicano movement.

Dr. Armando Gutiérrez, a leading figure in the Texas RUP, urged the participants to consider the relevance of Marxism to the Chicano struggle. He explained why he did not see Marxism as contradictory to Chicano nationalism.  
 
June 18, 1951
It was only a few years ago that the big majority of the 90,000 Ford workers at the Detroit River Rouge plant believed that the Ford empire was invincible.

And yet on June 23, Ford Local 600, the largest local union in the world, will hold a mass meeting celebrating its 10th anniversary.

The foundation of this powerful local union is indeed worthy of commemoration. Ford, with Bethlehem Steel, was the last of the great mass production fortresses to fall to the irresistible organizing drive of the CIO.

Henry Ford had repeatedly flouted the union’s organizing efforts with the flat statement that he would never sign a union contract. His staff of brass-knuckled gangsters called the "service department"--3,000 strong--beat down union efforts with physical terror.

Workers were mercilessly driven on the production lines: if a man put on a union button he was escorted out the plant gate, given a brutal beating, and fired. The despotic Ford ran his plant like a potentate, and the overworked, fearful and intimidated workers were all but convinced that this was one company the union could not overcome.

But on April 2, 1941, the mile-square Ford factory was humbled by the workers’ solidarity. Workers poured from the dozens of plants gates and formed a picket line of 30,000. The four main highways leading to the plant were blockaded by automobile barricades. No one could get near the plant without union permission.

In a few moments after the strike began it was clear that nothing on earth could defeat the new-found unity of the Ford workers.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home