Inside the Fisher No. 1 and No. 2 plants, sit-down strikers
remained in defiance of a judge's order just one day earlier
that had banned picketing and had ordered strikers out of the
factories. "The temperature was near zero in Flint as February 3
dawned," author Sidney Fine wrote in the book "Sit-Down." "In
the early morning the roads leading to the city were filled with
vehicles carrying UAW members and sympathizers to the scene of
the strike," the book says. "Walter Reuther brought in several
hundred men from his West Side local, and the Toledo UAW
dispatched every available man. Some of the supporters of the
strikers went to Fisher No. 1 to add muscle to the sit-downers
inside the plant in preparation for a possible attack but most
gathered outside the plant, according to Flint Journal accounts
at the time. One Journal report noted that large crowds had
assembled, some on the roofs of nearby buildings, to get a
better look at the plants on Feb. 3, waiting to see how local
police or the National Guard woul