Forgotten : the Murder at the Ford Rouge Plant
is the Labor jazz opera composed by Steve Jones. The opera tells the
dramatic stories of workers’ struggles to organize unions during the
Great Depression in the 1930s. With memorable songs and a story of
struggles, setbacks, and triumphs, it builds on the real-life story of
Reverend Lewis Bradford, a Methodist minister who went to Detroit to
work in the Howard Street Mission, a shelter for homeless and unemployed
workers. Bradford started a weekly radio show, “The Forgotten Man’s
Hour,” where workers could share their stories, on station WXYZ. The
program became a counterpoint to Father Charles Coughlin’s right-wing
radio program on a rival station.
Bradford,
who took a job at Ford’s River Rouge plant in nearby Dearborn, was
found fatally wounded one night in a remote part of the plant. While the
company said his injury was an accident, his widow and other family
members and co-workers were convinced that anti-union forces had
targeted him for his organizing efforts.
Some
65 years later Bradford’s great nephew, Steve Jones, an award-winning
jazz composer and musician in Washington DC, found a copy of the
original autopsy report, and took it to the county medical examiner who
said, after reading it, that Bradford‘s death should not have been ruled
an accident, but more likely was the result of homicide. Jones then
proceeded to write 25 songs about work at the Rouge, the organizing
struggles of the 1930s, and the fight for justice. His songs and story
evolved into Forgotten.
Forgotten : the Murder at the Ford Rouge Plant
performed to rave reviews. The production was directed by Elise Bryant;
Bill Meyer was the musical director. The play saluted the founding of
the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the CIO.
Forgotten was
performed at the George Meany Center for Labor Studies, Silver Spring,
Md. (2003) and in the Detroit area at Marygrove College (2004),
Millenium Theatre (2005) and at Macomb Community College (2010). The
Detroit cast also performed for the 2004 Machinists Union (IAM)
Convention in Cincinatti. In 2004 students at Macalester College presented Forgotten in St. Paul, Minn.
A CD of the live performance at Millenium Theater is available at
By Dave Elsila, 2010 (edited). Dave was the former editor of UAW Solidarity from 1976 to 1998.
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