Some striking UAW members carry family legacies, Black middle-class future along with picket signs

By COREY WILLIAMS and AISHA I. JEFFERSON
Associated Press

WAYNE, Mich. (AP) — Britney Johnson is among the thousands of Ford Motor Co. workers who went on strike to force the automaker to improve pay for all. But she carried more than a picket sign outside Ford’s Wayne Assembly plant west of Detroit. Johnson carried a multigenerational legacy of well paid union jobs, benefits and security that allowed her family to become part of the rising Black middle class. That meant home ownership, cars and vacations — all things that had been unattainable for many Blacks until they found work alongside whites in union factories in Detroit and other cities.