I Am Somebody (1970 film)

I Am Somebody is a 1969 short political documentary by Madeline Anderson about black hospital workers on strike in Charleston South Carolina. This was the first half-hour documentary film by an African-American woman in the film industry union.[1] This film is one of the first to link black women and the fight for civil rights.[2] In 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[3]

I Am Somebody
Directed byMadeline Anderson
Produced byAmerican Foundation of Non-Violence
StarringCoretta Scott King
Ralph Abernathy
Leon Davis
Andrew Young
Edited byMadeline Anderson
Release date
1969
Running time
28 min.
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Summary

Four hundred black hospital and nursing home employees, all but 12 women, organize for higher pay and unionization for over 100 days in Charleston, South Carolina.[4] The film follows the efforts of the strikers as they receive help from Coretta Scott King and both praise and admonishment from the public, even capturing the National Guard's arrival to the strikes.[5] The documentary captures the workers' fight, considered "...one of the south’s most disruptive and bitter labor confrontations since the 1930s”, for recognition through the lens of an African-American women, and focuses on striker and mother Claire Brown.[6] With the help of thousands of inspired protestors, the efforts are ultimately successful.[7]

Production

Anderson was commissioned to create a documentary about the strike by the Hospital Workers Union Local 1199. She used archival footage and interviews with strikes and city officials.[8] Of the commission, Anderson recalls:

They were looking for a filmmaker because they wanted to make a film about the strike. Someone had recommended me, and so, would I be interested? Yeah! I had already done so much research, and I knew what was available in the libraries. I was so overjoyed to do it. I would have done it for nothing, but this was the first time that I had a proper budget. They gave me money, time, everything that I needed to make this film.[9]

Anderson shared an interest in fighting for equity: "I knew that the obstacles that were before me were based on gender, race and politics...I tried to make a film that reflected my experience through their eyes."[10] The film captures the events through a feminist's lens.

Reception

Civil rights leaders praised the film; Fannie Lou Hamer said "..this film packs a tremendous punch and is deeply moving at the same time."[11] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called it a "a familiar story of social injustice and self-determination that relates to the larger civil rights movement even as it remains rooted in specific lives".[12]

Clips from the film appeared in a 2008 episode of The Colbert Report.[13]

References
  1. "Madeline Anderson, I Am Somebody (1969)". Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. November 20, 2012.
  2. "Alternative Histories of Labor: "HSA Strike '75" and "I Am Somebody," Sep. 26 | South Side Projections". southsideprojections.org.
  3. Chow, Andrew R. (December 11, 2019). "See the 25 New Additions to the National Film Registry, From Purple Rain to Clerks". Time. New York, NY. Retrieved December 11, 2019.
  4. "Madeline Anderson & I Am Somebody". Black Film Center/Archive. January 15, 2013.
  5. "I am somebody [electronic resource] in SearchWorks". searchworks.stanford.edu.
  6. Hawkesworth, Mary (2013). Feminist Practices: Signs on the Syllabus. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226172521.
  7. "Cable Car Cinema & Cafe - Magic Lantern Cinema Presents: Black Celebration". www.cablecarcinema.com.
  8. "I Am Somebody: Three Documentaries by Madeline Anderson". BAMPFA.
  9. "I Am Somebody: An Interview with Madeline Anderson | Metrograph". metrograph.com.
  10. "Madeline Anderson – Civil Rights Movement". Augmented Society.
  11. "I Am Somebody". icarusfilms.com.
  12. Dargis, Manohla (January 27, 2017). "A Film Series Honors Black Women Directors". The New York Times.
  13. "Andrew Young - The Colbert Report | Comedy Central". Comedy Central.

Further reading
  • Madeline Anderson in Conversation: Pioneering an African American Documentary Tradition[1]
  • BFC/A Documentaries on the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist Movements[2]
  • DAUGHTERS OF THE DIASPORA: A Filmography of Sixty-Five Black Women Independent Film- and Video-Makers[3]
  • Warren, Shilyh. “Recognition on the Surface of Madeline Anderson’s I Am Somebody.” Signs, vol. 38, no. 2, 2013, pp. 353–378. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/667201.
  • Warren, Shilyh. Films for the Feminist Classroom. Film review: I Am Somebody. Directed by Madeline Anderson. Brooklyn: Icarus Films, (1969) 1999. 30 minutes. http://ffc.twu.edu/issue_4-2/rev_Shilyh%20Warren_4-2.html
  • Cynthia A. Young, Soul Power: Culture, Radicalism, and the Making of a U.S. Third World Left. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006).
  1. Martin, Michael T. (2013). Madeline Anderson in Conversation: Pioneering an African American Documentary Tradition. pp. 72–93. JSTOR 10.2979/blackcamera.5.1.72.
  2. BFC/A Documentaries on the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist Movements. 2007. pp. 35–37. JSTOR 27761694.
  3. Williams, John (1994). DAUGHTERS OF THE DIASPORA: A Filmography of Sixty-Five Black Women Independent Film- and Video-Makers. pp. 41–42. JSTOR 41687325.
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