Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) on Netflix
NR19761h 44mDocumentary
In June 1973, 180 coal miners walk out at the Brookside Mine in Harlan County, Kentucky, against the Duke Power-owned company over safety and pay. Their wives join the picket lines.
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- Netflix4.6/5
- IMDb8.2/107,716 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Brookside Mine, Harlan County, Kentucky: 180 coal miners and their wives take on the Duke Power-owned Eastover Coal Company in a strike that begins in June 1973, over unsafe conditions, unfair labor practices and low pay. The wives join the picket lines and organize their own actions, with Lois Scott urging the community to keep the lines filled. The company brings in strikebreakers the strikers call gun thugs and insists on a no-strike clause in any new contract. Duke Power's profits rise 170 percent in a single year, while the miners are offered a 4 percent raise against an estimated 7 percent rise in living costs. Many striking families live without utilities or running water, and miners affected by black lung disease are interviewed.
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Harlan County U.S.A. (1976)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- As the Brookside strike neared a year and both sides openly brandished weapons, Barbara Kopple kept filming, or pretended to, even when the crew was out of film, because the presence of the crew and its staff support seemed to help keep the violence down.
- Barbara Kopple set out to film Miners for Democracy's attempt to unseat Tony Boyle as president of the UMWA, but when miners at the Brookside Mine in Harlan County, Kentucky, struck Duke Power Company in June 1973, she switched the film's focus to their strike.
- When Barbara Kopple and her cameraman Hart Perry turned up on the picket line, Harlan County locals were suspicious and rumors spread about a "hippie crew from New York"; a striker told Kopple she had to tell people there what she was doing.
