Painting by Sue Coe, inspired by a quote from a sit-down striker about the 1936 strike in Akron, Ohio, on a poster from the Images of Labor poster series.

“Those machines had kept going as long as we could remember… I finally remembered something… that I was a human being, that I could stop those machines, that I was better than those machines anytime.”

Rubberworkers in Akron, Ohio and autoworkers in Flint, Michigan pioneered the sit-down strike, in response to speed-ups, unsafe working conditions, low pay and lack of job security.  The pioneering tactic became widely used (see the photo of the 1937 Woolworths sit-down strike ) until the Supreme Court ruled it to be illegal in 1939. 

Image from Images of Labor Collection, Bread and Roses, artist Sue Coe.