Jimmy Hoffa (IBT)

1. Jimmy Hoffa, or James Riddle Hoffa, was born in Brazil, Indiana in 1913. Later in 1924, Jimmy and his family moved to Detroit, Michigan where he dropped out of high school and became a warehouse worker. He soon developed the reputation of a brawler or street fighter. Hoffa was fired from his warehouse job because of his reputation and standing up for the people he worked with going against management. He became an organizer for Local 299 of the IBT. Other organizers along with Hoffa battled management goons across Detroit. Hoffa paid a fine for his first conviction that was caused by him using organized crime connections to shake down a group of small stores. Hoffa rose through the ranks to a leading position in Local 299. Continuing with organized

On January 30, 1957, an eight-member Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field had been established. The IBT took action of taking down people a part of this committee. Dave Beck was the president of the committee, and he also was the first target for the IBT. When they took Beck down for embezzling union funds and income-tax violations, their eyes turned straight toward James R. Hoffa. Hoffa became a “marked man” because he referred to Robert Kennedy as “nothing but a rich man’s kid.” Robert Kennedy was promoted to attorney general once his brother John F. Kennedy was elected president of the United States in 1960. Robert Kennedy made a special team or squad to try and take down Hoffa. He named this squad the “Get Hoffa Squad.” One day Hoffa called his wife from a payphone to say that he had been stood up by two business partners. After that call, he vanished. No one heard from him nor had seen him in public ever again. Attempts have been to try and find him or if he was killed to try and find the suspect, but no evidence was found and no traces of his whereabouts were even close to being