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Poster for Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle
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Released
1982 · FILM

Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle

Runtime
59 min
Documentary

Synopsis

This documentary recounts the struggle of the Pullman sleeping car porters to form the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first Black trade union in the United States. Through archival materials and interviews with retired porters, the film reveals the discrimination behind their famed “miles of smiles” service and the long fight for recognition and dignity.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 14

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 Paul WagnerShot by John Hiller

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