Homer Martin (September 16, 1901 in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

– January 22, 1968) was an American trade unionist, a leader of the

United Auto Workers The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers (UAW), is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico ...

(UAW). and socialist. After high school he attended

Hewing College In woodworking, hewing is the process of converting a trunk (botany), log from its rounded natural form into lumber (timber) with more or less flat surfaces using primarily an axe. It is an ancient method, and before the advent of the industr ...

and received his AB from William Jewell College. Martin then attended the Kansas City

Baptist Theological Seminary Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...

for two years. After serving in Baptist churches in

Goreville, Illinois Goreville is a village in Johnson County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,049 as of the 2010 census, up from 938 at the 2000 census. Geography Goreville is located in northwestern Johnson County at (37.553212, -88.972783). It is b ...

and

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

, Martin went to work in the auto plants of Kansas City. He soon became active in the union movement and was appointed a Vice-President of the

UAW The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers (UAW), is an American Labor unions in the United States, labor union that represents workers in the Un ...

AFL AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

in 1935. In 1936 he was elected President of what came to be the UAW-CIO. After he accused four union vice-presidents of "conspiracy with communists to wreck union", he was ousted and replaced by

R. J. Thomas Roland Jay Thomas (June 9, 1900 – April 18, 1967), also known as R. J. Thomas, was a left-wing leader of the American automobile workers union in the 1930s and 1940s. He grew up in eastern Ohio and attended the College of Wooster for t ...

in 1938 who had been leader of the

Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...

sit-down srike in March the previous year. In 1938, after

Fred Beal Fred Erwin Beal (1896–1954) was an American labor-union organizer whose critical reflections on his work and travel in the Soviet Union divided left-wing and liberal opinion. In 1929 he had been a ''cause célèbre'' when, in Gastonia, North Car ...

, returned from the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

was deserted by the Communist-controlled International Labour Defense because of the witness he bore to the

Holodomor The Holodomor ( uk, Голодомо́р, Holodomor, ; derived from uk, морити голодом, lit=to kill by starvation, translit=moryty holodom, label=none), also known as the Terror-Famine or the Great Famine, was a man-made famin ...

, Martin joined a non-partisan committee for his defense against recommittal in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

where in 1929 the union organiser had been convicted in a conspiracy trial. With him on the committee were Thomas Ryun Amlie,

Jerry Voorhis Horace Jeremiah "Jerry" Voorhis (April 6, 1901 – September 11, 1984) was a Democratic politician and educator from California who served five terms in the United States House of Representatives from 1937 to 1947, representing the 12th ...

Emily Greene Balch Emily Greene Balch (January 8, 1867 – January 9, 1961) was an American economist, sociologist and pacifist. Balch combined an academic career at Wellesley College with a long-standing interest in social issues such as poverty, child labor, a ...

Dorothy Kenyon Dorothy Kenyon (February 17, 1888 – February 12, 1972) was a New York (state), New York attorney at law, attorney, judge, feminist and political activist in support of civil liberties. During the era of McCarthyism, McCarthyite persecution, she ...

and

Sara Bard Field Sara Bard Field (September 1, 1882 – June 15, 1974) was an American poet, suffragist, free love advocate, Georgist, and Christian socialist. She worked on successful campaigns for women's suffrage in Oregon and Nevada. Working with Alice Paul ...

. The Committee reported hostile pressure from members of the ILD and anonymous threats. In what was seen as "a body blow to company-dominated unionism in the auto" industry, in May 1940 Martin was removed by two main groups in the union who subsequently split apart: the Communists and their allies headed by UAW co-founder George Addes, and the Socialists and their allies, headed by Walter Reuther. In June 1941 he testified before the

House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

(HUAC) that

Fascists Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and th ...

, assisted by the Italian consul, were interfering in local politics in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

. He testified again before the HUAC on the presence and activities of Communists in both national labor federations, the

and CIO. Martin died in 1968.

Footnotes

Succession

1901 births Trade unionists from Kansas 1968 deaths Presidents of the United Auto Workers {{Trade-unionist-bio-stub

Footnotes

Further reading

Succession