FLINT, Michigan — Striking General Motors workers battled Flint police at GM’s Fisher Body No. 2 in a bloody night of fighting and a turning point in the Sit-Down Strike 75 years ago today.
Known as the “Battle of the Running Bulls,” the night of rioting, tear gas and shootings left at least 28 injured and triggered the mobilization of the National Guard by Gov. Frank Murphy the next day.
“On Jan. 11, violence began outside of Fisher Body 2 when company police shut off the heat, locked the gate to the plant and removed the ladder used to supply food to the strikers,” according to the book “The Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1936-37: Witnesses and Warriors.”