It was followed by the Battle of the Overpass in 1937, and was an important part of a chain of events that resulted in the unionization of the Automotive industry in the United States.

[4] Detroit's mayor was Frank Murphy; his profile rose after the incident, eventually becoming Governor of Michigan and later appointed to the Supreme Court by Franklin D. Roosevelt as an Associate Justice.

Foster, secretary of the Trade Union Unity League and a leader of the Communist Party, gave a speech in Detroit in preparation for the march.

The demands included rehiring the unemployed, providing funds for health care, ending racial discrimination in hiring and promotions, providing winter fuel for the unemployed, abolishing the use of company spies and private police against workers, and acknowledging workers' right to organize unions.

Marchers carried banners reading "Give Us Work", "We Want Bread Not Crumbs", and "Tax the Rich and Feed the Poor".

There, the Dearborn police attempted to stop the march by firing tear gas into the crowd and hitting marchers with clubs.

Harry Bennett, head of Ford security, drove up in a car, opened a window, and fired a pistol into the crowd.

Dearborn police and Ford security men opened fire with machine guns on the retreating marchers.

No law enforcement or Ford security officer was arrested, although all reliable reports showed that only they had engaged in all the gunfire, resulting in deaths, injuries, and property damage.

The Detroit Press said that "six shots fired by a communist hiding behind a parked car were cited by police Monday night as the match which touched off a riot at the Ford Motor Company plant."

The Detroit Free Press wrote that "These professional Communists alone are morally guilty of the assaults and killings which took place before the Ford plant.

In the following days, the local newspapers gathered more information and changed their tone, reassigning blame for the deaths and severe injuries of unemployed and unarmed workers.

The Detroit Times, for example, said that "Someone, it is now admitted, blundered in the handling of the throng of Hunger Marchers that sought to present petitions at the Ford plant in River Rouge."

The newspaper continued that 'The killing of obscure workmen, innocent of crime" was "a blow directed at the very heart of American institutions."

[13] Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy said that "the chaining of patient prisoners to beds is a brutal practice that should find no encouragement in an enlightened hospital".

When Williams, an African American, died of injuries, Woodmere Cemetery disallowed his burial there under its "whites only" policy of segregation.

We find, further, that the conduct of the Dearborn City Police when they first met the demonstrators, though well-intended, might have been more discreet, and better considered before they applied force in the form of tear gas.

However, we believe that the said police discharged what they conscientiously considered to be their sworn duty as law enforcing officials, alike when they intercepted the rioters at the city's limit, using tear gas and in the critical and violent situation which ensued employing gunfire to protect life and property, which were then manifestly in danger.