I was privileged yesterday to hear the inimitable Studs Terkel on a panel about the Studs Terkel Oral History Center here in Chicago. He is an exemplar of the belief that the stories of ordinary people are important and meaningful, that they can be agents of social change, and that they should be documented and preserved.
Also yesterday was an excellent session on labor materials in Chicago film and video collections. The highlight was a presentation by Larry Duncan about Labor Beat, a locally-produced cable tv series on labor which ahs been running for the past 20 years. The show is independent but totally sustained through DVD sales and contributions from a number of unions and rnk-and-file members. check it out at www.laborbeat.org.
Howard Besser (NYU) & Caroline Rubens (Appalshop)