Today's Labor History

The Ford Motor Co. introduces the continuous moving assembly line which can produce a complete car every two-and-a-half minutes - 1913

Kellogg cereal adopts 6-hour day - 1930

African-American Rosa Parks refuses to go to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. This simple act of defiance fueled the civil rights movement's campaign against segregation. Although widely honored in later years, Rosa Parks also suffered for her act; she was fired from her job as a seamstress in a local department store, and received death threats for years afterwards. Shortly after the boycott, she moved to Detroit. From 1965 to 1988 she served as secretary and receptionist to John Conyers, an African-American Congressman. She was also active in the Black Power movement and the support of political prisoners in the United States - 1955

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