Workers organized two protests at Ford Motor Co.’s engine plant in Lima, Ohio, on June 19. One was a picket at shift change made up primarily of Black workers, objecting both to blatant racial insults and to a hierarchy that they allege keeps Black employees from moving up.
The other was a one-day strike by white workers in the factory’s tool room, who boycotted work to protest the firing of fellow toolmaker Brent Von Lehmden. Von Lehmden had hung a stuffed monkey at the work station of Black apprentice Marlo Jordan.
The monkey incident was only the latest in a series of insults at the plant in the last few years. Racist graffiti has been scrawled in restrooms. Nooses have been found.