Blacks | THE LABOR FILM DATABASE

Struggles in Steel: The Fight for Equal Opportunity (1996)

58m; U.S.

Director: Tony Buba, Raymond Henderson

Cast: Raymond Henderson, Dennis C. Dickerson and Katrina Heiss

Synopsis (IMDB): This documentary tells the forgotten story of the African-American struggle for equality in the U.S. steel industry (based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). In a series of interviews intermixed with archival footage and stills, we learn how these workers faced and overcame discrimination that came from white workers, the big steel companies, and even from their own unions.

Contact: www.braddockfilms.com 412-681-5449

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Posted by Metro Council on May 7, 2012 in Blacks, Documentary, Organizing

Tags: Steel Industry

Quilombo (1986)

26 Apr

119; Brazil

Director: Carlos Diegues

Cast: Jonas Bloch, Zózimo Bulbul and Emmanuel Cavalcanti

Synopsis (IMDB): Palmares is a 17th-century quilombo, a settlement of escaped slaves in northeast Brazil. In 1650, plantation slaves revolt and head for the mountains where they find others led by the aged seer, Acotirene. She anoints one who becomes Ganga Zumba, a legendary king. For years, his warriors hold off Portuguese raiders; then he agrees to leave the mountains in exchange for reservation land and peace. It’s a mistake. Zumbi, a warrior whose mother was killed by Portuguese and who spent 15 years with the Whites, stays in the mountains to lead Palmares. In 1694, the Portuguese import a ruthless captain from São Paulo to lead an assault on the free Blacks. Can Zumbi keep Palmares free?

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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Blacks, Drama, Labor History, Slavery

A Raisin in the Sun (1961)

26 Apr

128m; U.S.

Director: Daniel Petrie

Cast: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil and Ruby Dee

Synopsis (IMDB): Film based on the play by Lorraine Hansberry. Walter Lee Younger is a young man struggling with his station in life. Sharing a tiny apartment with his wife, son, sister and mother, he seems like an imprisoned man. Until, that is, the family gets an unexpected financial windfall…

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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Blacks, Drama, Working Class

Rising from the Rails: The Story of the Pullman Porter

26 Apr

47m; U.S.

Director: Brad Osborne

Director: Glenn Bradley, Lindsey Holloway and Evan Mason

Synopsis: RISING FROM THE RAILS: THE STORY OF THE PULLMAN PORTER, a documentary based on the best-selling book by Larry Tye, chronicles the relatively unheralded Pullman Porters, generations of African American men who served as caretakers to wealthy white passengers on luxury trains that traversed the nation during the golden age of rail. Unbeknownst to most of their white passengers, porters played critical political and cultural roles, becoming trailblazers in the struggle for African American dignity and self-sufficiency, patriarchs of black labor unions, and helping give birth to the Civil Rights Movement. Ultimately, however, their greatest legacy is that which they left to future generations.

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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Blacks, Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Labor History, Organizing, Transportation, Working Class

The Rosa Parks Story (2002)

26 Apr

97m; U.S.

Director: Julie Dash

Cast: Angela Bassett, Peter Francis James and Tonea Stewart

Synopsis: Film biography of civil rights heroine Rosa Parks.

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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Biography, Blacks, Drama, Organizing, Women

Struggles in Steel: The Fight for Equal Opportunity (1996)

26 Apr

58m; U.S.

Director: Tony Buba, Raymond Henderson

Cast: Raymond Henderson, Dennis C. Dickerson and Katrina Heiss

Synopsis (IMDB): This documentary tells the forgotten story of the African-American struggle for equality in the U.S. steel industry (based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). In a series of interviews intermixed with archival footage and stills, we learn how these workers faced and overcame discrimination that came from white workers, the big steel companies, and even from their own unions.

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Posted by Metro Council on April 26, 2012 in Blacks, Documentary, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Labor History, Organizing

Tags: Steel Industry

The Last Supper (La última cena) [1976]

20 Apr

120m; Cuba

Director: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

Cast: Nelson Villagra, Silvano Rey and Luis Alberto García

Synopsis (IMDB): A pious plantation owner attempts to teach Christianity to 12 of his slaves by inviting them to participate in a reenactment of the Last Supper.

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Posted by Metro Council on April 20, 2012 in Blacks, Drama

The Learning Tree (1969)

20 Apr

107m; U.S.

Director: Gordon Parks

Cast: Kyle Johnson, Alex Clarke and Estelle Evans

Synopsis (IMDB): The story, set in Kansas during the 1920’s, covers less than a year in the life of a black teenager, and documents the veritable deluge of events which force him into sudden manhood. The family relationships and enmities, the fears, frustrations and ambitions of the black teenager in small-town America are explored with a strong statement about human values

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Posted by Metro Council on April 20, 2012 in Blacks, Drama, Working Class

The Long Walk Home (1990)

20 Apr

97m; U.S.

Director: Richard Pearce

Cast: Sissy Spacek, Whoopi Goldberg and Dwight Schultz

Synopsis (IMDB): Two women, black and white, in 1955 Montgomery Alabama, must decide what they are going to do in response to the famous bus boycott lead by Martin Luther King.

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Posted by Metro Council on April 20, 2012 in Blacks, Drama, Organizing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts