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Sitdown Strike.

Sit-Down Men and Stand-Up Women

Field review by the editors.

Flint, Michigan

Sit-Downers Memorial Park was built by the United Auto Workers to honor those who took part in the 1937 strike against General Motors. It marked a new approach, a "sit-down" strike. The workers just sat down at their factory posts on December 30, 1936, and refused to work until their demands were met. It lasted 44 days.

Sitting doesn't make for a very dynamic memorial, so it was designed with two separate groups of statues. In the first, the men (the factory workers were all men) lounge on car seats, read a newspaper, take a nap, waiting for the strike to end. In the second, set against the outside wall of the factory, a woman is dragged away by a policeman, another woman carries a basket of food to the men inside, and a third is about to swing a baseball bat to smash out a window.

Sit-Down Men and Stand-Up Women

Address:
1940 W. Atherton Rd, Flint, MI
Directions:
I-69 exit 135. Drive south on Hammerberg Rd, then make a quick right onto W 12th St. Drive a quarter-mile and turn left onto Van Slyke Rd, then quickly turn left onto Executive Plaza Drive. Sitdowners Memorial Park will be on the right.
Save to My Sights

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