SEPTEMBER REVIVAL: Madeline Anderson, "I Am Somebody" (1970)

Madeline Anderson is considered by some to be the first Black Woman documentarian. So we checked her out for our September Revival. These films definitely reinforced an autumnal feel - calming and evenly paced, though unevenly lit with their passing shadows. So this is where we’ll begin…

The first film we watched is possibly the most well known of the three films: “I am Somebody” (1970). The first thing that struck me was the narrator. The short film covers the Charleston Hospital Workers’ Strike of 1969. The nurses of two of the city’s medical institutions - the Charleston County Hospital and the Medical College Hospital struck over pay, working conditions, and other matters. As Coretta Scott King voices in the film - “$1.30 an hour is not a wage -- it is an insult.” (11:45 - 13:30). Or hear how one of the student supporters explains: “there is no sense in us going to school for 12 years to make $1.30 an hour.” (~19:30)

Narration

The film is narrated by one of the striking nurses. Her voice is calm, and even, and… there’s another quality to her narration which I can’t pinpoint. It’s not soft or strident; she’s not telling a bedtime story, or an epic; it’s almost as if she is reading a witness statement into the record. Her narration is sure; like she knows it will stand the test of time. And she takes her time - just to ensure you can follow.

An Immersion

You might mistake the narrator as an all-seeing, objective voice or a fly on the wall observer. However, her position is always clear. (THAT’S IT! THE QUALITY IN THE NARRATOR’S VOICE: LUCIDITY.) The film is an immersion. Viewing it is moving in real time with it - and before you realize it, or realize that you weren’t even consciously wondering about it - you learn that the strike was successful. IT WAS SUCCESSFUL. All of the hospital workers were hired back and all their conditions met. Charleston County Hospital workers had to strike for thirteen days longer than the Medical College workers.

Overlooked Icons in Overlooked Places?

It is a treat to take in the civil rights icons who show up to support and steward the striking workers - Ralph David Abernathy, Coretta Scott King, Andrew Young. People I know, we all likely know; but whose voices, and speeches and faces I rarely see in the civil rights playbacks we now take in. Well, in the case of Mrs. Coretta, we see her all the time, but do we hear her? Sometimes we really just leave her at her pretty face. And check Reverend Abernathy in his Denim jacket! For a few film club members, the South Carolina setting was also important - it is not Atlanta or Birmingham, it’s not even the “deep south,” which rightly gets most of the attention in civil rights lore. Also importantly - the strikers are unionized.

All of us present still found it unusual - the presence of a union in the South, even now, but especially in the late 1960’s. Also importantly, Andrew Jones’s speech brings the context and focus back on poor people - back to where Dr. King left off; back to where we’re often told the Civil Rights Movement ended. But clearly, it didn’t. Or this film wouldn’t exist.

“The most discriminated working woman in the U.S. is the Black working woman.” - Coretta Scott King

Solidarity

Avoid downtown Charleston was the winning strategy. The narrator reports that the strike caused $15 million dollars in loses for downtown businesses. One film club member wondered, “is this type of solidarity possible today?” Have our material conditions and relations changed such that we won’t choose to come together like this in 2024? Consensus was: yeah…we’re not built like this any more.

“We are dedicated to the Charleston County Hospital,”… the leader of the County workers tells news cameras at the end of the film, as she and the other striking workers sit across the table from County Hospital leadership. “But more importantly [we’re dedicated'] to each other. We are mutually recognized and dignified.”

“I was in jail twice, my children were in jail too." - Narrator.

The narrator made sure to tell us about intergenerationality in the strike. The strikers were most supported by the city’s Black students, who took their cues from SNCC (the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee). The narrator recounts working to get her husband on board. This he had to get to work himself! - He had to get to cooking and cleaning and grocery shopping.

Because, as the Narrator tells us at the start “we are all Black and mostly women”. What is the work of Black women? And a Black woman’s worth?