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Poster for I Am Somebody
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Released
1970 · FILM

I Am Somebody

Directed by
Madeline Anderson
Written by
Madeline Anderson
Runtime
30 min
Documentary
Streaming on
  • The Criterion Channel

Synopsis

Madeline Anderson’s documentary captures the events of the 1969 Charleston hospital workers’ strike, when 400 low-paid Black women protested for union recognition and better wages, facing opposition from the National Guard and the state government. Anderson was actively involved in the strike, alongside figures such as Coretta Scott King, Ralph Abernathy, and Andrew Young, who were all associated with Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The film highlights the determination of the workers and the backing they received from the local Black community. It serves as a crucial visual record of a significant chapter in civil and women’s rights history. Additionally, the film is recognized as possibly the first televised civil rights documentary directed by a woman of color, marking an important milestone in American film.

Credits

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 7

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Madeline Anderson

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