Henry Ford started out paying equal wages to everyone, but over time his paranoia and anti-Semitism made him more and more racist. In the later years of his life the company was in a power struggle between his son Edsel (whom Henry treated like shit) and the union-busting head of security who would literally have workers beaten on the floor and dragged by cars. The more power the head of security got, the more racist Henry Ford became.
And while Ford paid the black workers the same as white workers (again, in the beginning) he allowed the company goons to keep them in ghettos so they wouldn't amass power in the greater Detroit area. Throughout Henry's reign, the company police would dictate how people lived, even off the job. Ford didn't want anyone drinking, wanted them growing gardens etc. He would send the goons in for spot checks for alcohol and other things he deemed as unhealthy so they could dock pay etc. As you can imagine, the more vulnerable populations in the company would see the visits more often.
Meanwhile Edsel was undermined all the time. He once built a new building for the accounting department; upon opening it, Henry fired all the accountants. Edsel also arranged to have a bunch of industrial boilers installed in one of the factories, Henry had them disassembled the next day. Henry lived to see Edsel put into the ground from stomach cancer, which Henry would publicly claim Edsel was making up, till it was pretty clear he was dying from it.
arstechnica.com
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