Michael Berkowitz at People’s World reports that on September 30th, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) will screen its excellent new film: Hard Hat Riot, a memorable entry in the award-winning American Experience series.
This PBS series has been television’s most-watched history series, winning 30 Emmy Awards and virtually every other major broadcast award. Director Mark Levin and his crew continue the fine PBS work in offering insight into recent American History. They immerse the viewers in how the tumultuous 1970s affected society, particularly the Working Class and college students, against the backdrop of anti-Vietnam War protests and the contentious Presidency of Richard Nixon. The film bristles with the energy of the times. Student activists around the country and in the streets of New York City organized huge demonstrations, particularly after Nixon’s illegal invasion of Cambodia and the National Guard’s killing of four young people at Kent State. Meanwhile, large segments of the non-college Working Class viewed these protests as the ungrateful acting out of the new privileged, upwardly mobile young. The film focuses on these two conflicting segments of American society.
Levin specifically contrasts the situation and reactions among New York City Construction Workers to massive college student demonstrations in the City. Workers felt confused and angry. They were abandoned by an economy steaming toward globalization, their work and social status devalued. The students had the opportunity to use higher education to attain new higher status as well express their anti-war idealism. Hard Hat Riot makes the emotions that fueled these conflicts palpable through copious film clips from the early seventies and testimony from eyewitnesses.
President of New York’s Building and Construction Trades Council, Steam Fitter William Abbate, Iron Worker Dennis Milton and scores of other “hard hats” described how the Working Class felt left behind by New York City’s upper classes.
To Read This Labor News Report In Its Entirety, Go To: ‘Hard Hat Riot’: Class conflict in New York – People’s World
