2012 Events
Actor/activist WALI JAMALl does MARTIN DELANEY, a superb presentation
on a too often neglected historical Hero
BHF SCHEDULE OF OTHER PROGRAMS FOR 2012
SATURDAYS, PUMP HOUSE, 1:30 P.M.
April 14, 2012, Saturday, 1:30 p.m. "From Memphis to Madison: Reviving Martin Luther
King's Gospel of Labor Rights and Economic Justice."
Michael Honey’s interactive presentation, based on his recent book, "All Labor Has Dignity" (Beacon Press), features the labor speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., and their relevance to rebuilding movements for social change today. Honey is currently professor of labor and ethnic studies and American history at the University of Washington in Tacoma, where he previously served as Harry Bridges Chair of Labor Studies. He is also a former civil rights organizer, past president of the Labor and Working Class History Association, and an author of three award-winning books about Memphis workers. Pittsburgh’s own noted playwright and actor, Wali Jamal, will open the program by performing excerpts from his new play "Martin R. Delany Lives," (at the August Wilson Center from May 1-May 6), and Pittsburgh’s labor troubadour, Mike Stout, will perform his song, "Martin Delany."
May 19, 2012, Saturday, 1:30 p.m. "The Crisis of Public Transit."
A panel of representatives from three unions, the ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union), HERE (Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees), and the UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers), along with the Pittsburghers for Public Transit, will discuss the region’s transportation problems and what can be done about them.
June 23, 2012, Saturday, 1:30 p.m. "When Jobs Disappear."
Robert W. Bednarzik, Visiting Professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, will draw upon his work at the U.S. Department of Labor and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) to talk comparatively about unemployment, job training, and social safety nets in the global economy. Joe Szalanski, who has trained the unemployed, and Norm Koehler, training manager and former president of the Federal Training Corporation, will add their insights into what happens when jobs disappear.
July 14, 2012, Saturday, 1:30 p.m. "Inequality and Labor's Right to Organize."
Leo Gerard president of the United Steel Workers, will be the featured speaker for the annual Bernard Kleiman lecture, an event sponsored by the United Steel Workers and named after its late legal counsel. Paul Le Blanc, professor of history and political science at LaRoche College, will conclude the program with a short talk based on his new book, Work and Struggles: Voices from U.S. Labor Radicalism (Routledge, 2011).
August 18, 2012, Saturday, 1:30 p.m. "Commemorating the ‘Bread and Roses’ Strike"
and "Remembering Fannie Sellins."
Two presentations about U.S. labor history constitute the day’s program. Millie Beik, author of The Miners of Windber and Labor Relations, will mark the 100th anniversary of the remarkable Lawrence strike of 1912, and Richard Gazarik, a Tribune-Review correspondent, will talk about his research and new book, Black Valley, The Life and Times of Fannie Sellins.
September 22, 2012, Saturday, 1:30 p.m. "Woody Guthrie Concert." TBA.
This concert will feature Mike Stout, Pittsburgh's labor troubadour, and other musicians in celebration of Guthrie's life and work on the centennial anniversary of his birth.
October 13, 2012, Saturday, 1:30 p.m. "Like a Man Gone Mad."
Sam Hazo is Pennsylvania's first poet laureate (1993-2003), a prolific author, a McNulty Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Duquesne University, and director of the International Poetry Forum in Pittsburgh. He will read selections from his acclaimed body of work.
2012 BHF MOVIE PROGRAMS
ALL MOVIES ARE SHOWN AT THE PUMP HOUSE
ON THE LAST THURSDAY OF THE MONTH FROM APRIL THROUGH OCTOBER
April 26, 2012, Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Crossing the American Crises: From Collapse to Action. Film by Silvia Leindecker & Michael Fox. Estreito Meio Productions, 2011. 82 mins.
This documentary explores two major developments in recent U.S. history. The first is the impact that the September 2008 financial crisis had on ordinary working people throughout the country. The second is the response of working people to the crises affecting them, including their reaction to the government's bailouts and Obama's election. Particular attention is devoted to the emergence of progressive grass-roots movements such as the Vermont Workers' Center, the Green Worker Cooperative in the Bronx, the Santa Fe Alliance in New Mexico, and the Iraq Veterans Against the War. The film's overall theme is that the recent economic collapse indicates that it is "the people" themselves who must organize—and act—to bring about greater economic and social justice. Discussion will follow the film, with comments by Occupy Pittsburgh participants and others.
May 31, 2012, Thursday, 7:30 p.m. UE Leading the Fight (excerpts) and Workers' Republic. Film by Andrew Friend. Sponsored by UE (the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers' Union). Insurgent Productions, 2010. 60 mins.
Brief excerpts from the film, UE Leading the Fight, will be shown as a tribute to the late Rick Peduzzi, followed by a screening of Workers' Republic. This documentary film is about an event—the dramatic sit-in at the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago in December 2008—that captured the nation's attention. In the midst of the national economic collapse, the company abruptly announced the factory's closure and informed workers that it would not pay them their past earnings or other benefits due them. The response of the disgruntled workers, members of the UE, was to occupy the factory in a manner reminiscent of the 1930s. They did so for six days, won over the public, and succeeded in their efforts.
June 28, 2012, Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Food Stamped. Film by Shirah & Yoav Potash. Summit Pictures, 2011. 62 mins.
This timely documentary provides important accurate information about the food stamp program in the U.S., and it does so with some humor. The movie's premise is a challenge: Can a nutrition educator and her husband—let alone anyone else—eat healthy and well for a week if they live on the budget accorded food-stamp recipients? In addition to recording the couple's experiences as they try to meet the challenge, the film presents basic facts about the program, examines the nutritional value of school lunches, cites conflicts between industrial food producers and organic farmers, and highlights the various problems that applicants and those on food stamps face. Discussion with Tara Max of Just Harvest will follow the film.
July 26, 2012, Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Sick Around the World. Frontline, PBS, 2008. 56 mins. Mouseland, Canada, (1944). 8 mins.
In the Frontline documentary, Sick Around the World, T. R. Reid, a Washington Post correspondent, raises the controversial and timely issue of how America's heath care system might be improved. The filmmakers chose to investigate healthcare in five advanced industrialized capitalist countries instead of nations where "socialized" medicine is the norm. By providing Americans with valuable but little known information about the successes and failures of health care in the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, and Switzerland, it offers a base of comparison for progressive health care reform in the U.S. Mouseland, the short classic humorous political cartoon about how the electorate votes, follows, along with discussion.
August 30, 2012, 7:30 p.m. Shout Youngstown. Produced and directed by Carol Greenwald and Dorie Krauss. Cinema Guild, 2006, c. 1984. 45 mins.
About 25,000 steelworkers lost their jobs in Youngstown, Ohio, between 1976 and 1980, when major U.S. steel corporations closed three large mills there. The city of Youngstown was devastated in the process. This documentary features interviews with steelworkers, lawyers, local union leaders, activists, and others. It traces the moving but futile efforts of the steelworkers, the Ecumenical Council, and the Save Our Valley movement to stop the closures. Highlighted is the unrealized plan of a worker-community alliance to buy and operate the mills.
If possible, Staughton and Alice Lynd may comment.
September 27, 2012, Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Split Estate Bullfrog Films, 2009. 76 mins.
This is a documentary film about natural gas drilling in Colorado and the Rocky Mountains and the impact it has on communities, health, the environment, and civil liberties. Its unique feature is that it focuses on the problems incurred when "split estates" prevail, as they so often do in Pennsylvania. A "split estate" exists when ownership of a tract of land is divided in two, with the surface rights belonging to one party and the rights beneath the surface to another. Thus, gas companies, mining companies, and others can legally extract minerals or other resources despite the objections of the owners of the surface land.
October 25, 2012, Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Woody Guthrie: Ain't Got No Home. Peter Frumkin Productions, 2007. 90 mins.
Woody Guthrie's life, music, and cultural legacy are the subject of this PBS American Experience documentary. The emergence of this troubadour of America's working people during the Great Depression is illustrated through photos, interviews, recordings, and more. The socially conscious songs of this complicated man helped reveal the core contradictions of American life and left a legacy for Pete Seegar, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and many others. The screening of this film commemorates the 100th anniversary of Guthrie's birth.
| Literature |
Poetry | Film |
Labor | Music |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| William Serrin Judith Serrin John Hoerr Nick Coles Laurie Graham Clarke Thomas Melvyn Dubofsky Mildred Beik Jeanne Cecil and Dorothy Svitesic Jack Metzgar Lori Jakiela John Hinshaw Michael Yates |
Jan Beatty Peter Blair Robert Gibb Peter Oresick Timothy Russell |
Tony Buba Steffi Domike James Catano Jim Hohman |
John Sweeney Bill George Leo Gerard George Becker Rosemary Trump Jack Shea Dan Kavolik Lynn Williams Oliver Montgomery Sean George Tony Slomkowski |
Anne Feeney Joe Glaser Nelson Harrison Mike Stout Smokestack Lightning Raging Grannies |
| History | Artists |
Photography |
Community |
Other Distinguished Speakers |
| Dave Demarest Russ Gibbons Charles McCollester Joe White |
Gary Huck Mike Konopacki Robert Qualters Bill Yund |
Charlee Brodsky Gene Levy Steve Mellon Annie O'Neill Sandra Gould Ford Mark Perrot |
Mike Wagner Ed Salaj Ray Bodner Betty Esper Barney Oursler Paul Lodico Ed Salaj John and Linda Asmonga |
Bernard Kleiman William Gaughan Thorsten Gressor Msgr Charles Owen Rice Father Jack O'Malley Ken Wolensky Mike Healy |