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Category Archives: Blacks

Mighty Times: The Children’s March (2004)

20 Apr

40m; U.S.

Director: Robert Houston

Synopsis: About young people organizing in Birmingham, Alabama when the elders were encouraging slowing down civil rights organizing.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Blacks, Children, Documentary, Organizing

 

Native Land (1942)

20 Apr

80m; U.S.

Director: Leo Hurwitz, Paul Strand

Cast:  Paul Robeson, Fred Johnson and Mary George

Synopsis (IMDB): Paul Robeson narrates a mix of dramatizations and archival footage about the bill of rights being under attack during the 1930s by union busting corporations, their spies and contractors. In dramatizations, we see a farmer beaten for speaking up at a meeting, a union man murdered in a boarding house, two sharecroppers near Fort Smith Arkansas shot by men deputized by the local sheriff, a spy stealing the names of union members, and a dead Chicago union man eulogized. In archival footage we witness police and goons beating lawfully assembled union organizers, and we see men at work and union families at play. The narration celebrates patriotism and democracy.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in A: Highly Recommended Labor Films, Blacks, Class, Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Farm & Food, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Labor History, Legal System, Organizing, Politics, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Working Class

 

Nothing But A Man (1964)

20 Apr

95m; U.S.

Director: Michael Roemer

Cast:  Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln and Julius Harris

Synopsis (IMDB): Born in Birmingham, Duff Anderson, the father of a male toddler, who lives with a nanny, re-locates to a small town to work on the railroad. He meets with and is attracted to Josie much to the chagrin of her preacher father. The marriage does take place nevertheless, both re-locate to live in their own house and he gets a job in a mill. He decides not to bring his son to live with them. Challenges arise when the Mill Foreman finds out that Duff is attempting to unionize the workers, forcing Duff to quit, and look for work elsewhere. Unable to reconcile himself to working on a daily wage of $2.50 picking cotton nor even as a waiter, he gets a job at a garage. He is enraged at a customer for belittling him and Josie, and is let go. Unemployed, unable to support his wife and son, he gets abusive and leaves – perhaps never to return.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in A: Highly Recommended Labor Films, Blacks, Class, Collective Bargaining, Drama, Farm & Food, Organizing, Unemployment-Wages, Working Class

 

Our Land Too (1988)

20 Apr

57m; U.S.

Director: Kudzu Productions

Synopsis (Baldwin and Associates): A historical production telling the story of the first interracial movements in America, the Southern Tenant Farmers Union.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Blacks, Documentary, Farm & Food, Labor History, Organizing

 

The People Speak

20 Apr

113m; U.S.

Director: Tony Sacco

Cast: Marisa Tomei, Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Matt Damon, Viggo Mortensen, Kerry Washington, Danny Glover, David Strathairn & more

Synopsis: A look at America’s struggles with war, class, race and women’s rights, with actors and actresses reading excerpts of letters, diaries, and speeches from major figures appearing in Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States.”

Contact: http://thepeoplespeak.com Chris Moore: cmoore@goldiemail.com

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Blacks, Class, Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Labor History, Politics

 

Joe (1970)

28 Mar

107m; U.S.

Director: John G. Avildsen

Cast: Peter Boyle, Dennis Patrick and Susan Sarandon

Synopsis (IMDB): Bill, a wealthy businessman, confronts his junkie daughter’s drug-dealing boyfriend; in the ensuing argument, Bill kills him. Panic-stricken, he wanders the streets and eventually stops at a bar. There he runs into a drunken factory worker named Joe, who hates hippies, blacks, and anyone who is “different”, and would like to kill one himself. The two start talking, and Bill reveals his secret to Joe. Complications ensue

 
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Posted by on March 28, 2012 in Blacks, Drama, Working Class

 

Killer of Sheep (1977)

28 Mar

83m; U.S.

Director: Charles Burnett

Cast:  Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore and Charles Bracy

Synopsis: Killer of Sheep examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse.

Frustrated by money problems, he finds respite in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a coffee cup against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife in the living room, holding his daughter. The film offers no solutions; it merely presents life — sometimes hauntingly bleak, sometimes filled with transcendent joy and gentle humor.

 
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Posted by on March 28, 2012 in Blacks, Drama, Working Class

 

The Killing Floor (1985)

28 Mar

118m; U.S.
Director: Bill Duke
Cast: Cynthia Baker, Dennis Farina and Clarence Felder

Synopsis (IMDB): During World War I, a poor black Southerner travels north to Chicago to get work in the city’s slaughterhouses, where he becomes embroiled in the organized labor movement. He becomes prominent as a leader of fellow African-Americans in the union, though many, including his best friend, view him as a sell-out.

Contact: Elsa Rassbach elsarassbach@gmail.com http://www.thekillingfloor-thefilm.com

 
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Posted by on March 28, 2012 in A: Highly Recommended Labor Films, Blacks, Drama, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Outsourcing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

Jack Johnson, the Big Fights (1970)

23 Mar

90m; U.S.

Director: William Cayton

Synopsis: Story of black boxer who was forced into exile in 1910.

 
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Posted by on March 23, 2012 in Blacks, Documentary, Sports

 

I Am A Man: Dr. King and the 1968 AFSCME Memphis Sanitation Strike

19 Mar

Synopsis: On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis to support AFSCME sanitation workers. That evening, he delivered his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech to a packed room of supporters. The next day, he was assassinated. (NOTE: see At The River I Stand for a 56m version of this issue).

 
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Posted by on March 19, 2012 in Blacks, Documentary, Organizing, Politics, Public Sector, Service Workers, Streaming Online (Youtube, Vimeo)

 
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