Roving Pickets
- Date of Production
- 1991
- Duration
- Run time: 0:28:42
- Creators
- Lewis Johnson, Anne (is director)
- Appalshop, Inc (is producer)
- Davis, Dee (is producer)
- Headwaters (is producer)
- Contributors
- Dickens, Hazel (is musician)
- Sexton, Lee (is musician)
- Kline, Mike (is musician)
- Summary
- 28-minute color documentary Roving Pickets, a 1991 release directed by Anne Lewis.
The documentary looks at the post-1950s coal industry in Eastern Kentucky and how mechanization in the auto, steel and energy industries led small coal operators to nullify union contracts in order to reduce costs. The consequences of these changes on rural communities are examined in interviews with miners, coal operators and other participants who discuss reduced wages, unemployment, out-migration, and, in 1961 and 1962, the cancellation of union health insurance benefits and the threatened closing of the UMWA hospitals.
- Description
Part of a series about the War on Poverty in Appalachia
A videotape by Anne Lewis Johnson with Buck Maggard
Andrew Garrison, Photographer
Dee Davis, Executive Producer
And Herb E. Smith, Joe Gray, Debra Bays, Mimi Pickering, Suzi Wehling, Elizabeth Barret
Humanities advisors: Gurney Norman, Judi Jennings, Helen Lewis, Richard A. Cuoto
Archival films and photographs, courtesy: Peter Gessner, Berman Gibson, the LBJ Library, Anthony Casanova, Helen Rentch, Benham Coal Co., National Bituminous Coal Association, CBS News (archival research, Virginia Grey)
Titles and mastering: Post Production Services, Inc.
Editor, John Farinacci
Asst. Editor, Jay Bellissimo
Interviewees: Hazel Bailey, Lee Sexton, Hamish Sinclair, Charles Combs, Faye Fields, Hobard Maggard, Gurney Norman, Bill Morton, Bige Hensley, Berman Gibson, Jack Davidson, Don Baker, Michael Bailey
"Clara Sullivan's Letter"
written by Melvina Reynolds,
music by Pete Seeger,
sung by Hazel Dickens
"Little Birdie"
(trad.) performed by Lee Sexton
"Happy Pappy Song"
written by William M. Sizemore,
music and sung by Mike Kline
Special thanks to: Clayton Turner, Elizabeth Wooten, Kate Black, Johnny Fugate, Cindy Tharp, David M. Whalin, the Hazard Herald Voice, Blue Gem Coal Co.
Funding provided by the Kentucky Humanities Council, Southeast Media Fellowship Program, Virginia Commission for the Arts, Ford Foundation
- Related Collection
- Roving Pickets materials, c.1991