Rare Footage of the Flint Sit-Down Strike and Flood

Reader JWilly writes: "Sometime after the introduction of 8mm movie cameras in 1932, my grandfather bought one, along with a projector, screen and the other equipment needed for that early technology. 8mm film didn't have an audio track then, but that didn't matter because he could narrate as he projected. Certainly he was no cinematographer--he didn't tell picture-stories or plan his shoots, he just pointed the camera at whatever was of interest, or directed his assistant of the moment to do so. Nowdays we'd say his shots were too short and his pans too fast, but that was the home movie style of the day...no doubt influenced by the significant cost of film and developing.

"Much of the film he shot was kept by my parents, and we've finally gotten most of it converted to video."

"This brief film about the 1947 Flint River flood, in mostly-faded color, shows parts of the downtown area near the river. This was after the peak of the flood had passed. My grandfather's store then was at the corner of Beach Street and First Street, about two blocks from the river. The surface water didn't get quite that far, but the store's basement and the bottom of the freight elevator shaft were flooded several feet deep. At first it wasn't clear how high the flood might go, and probably shooting film of the flood had lower priority than getting as much as possible of the inventory and store fixtures to upper floors, then working to salvage what had gotten wet. Once the water clearly had stopped rising, then there was time to go sightseeing." 

"My dad had just turned 15 when the 1936-37 Sit-Down Strike began. I think he was the cameraman as my grandfather drove, for some of this short collection showing National Guard troops outside Fisher Body #1 on South Saginaw, and bivouacked alongside (I think) the IMA near downtown. Having strikers and police engaged in pitched battles that sent people on both sides to hospitals, and police cars burned and wrecked, and troops in town with fixed bayonets was quite shocking to the ordinary citizenry, for whom Organized Labor, Socialism and Communism all were new, strange and — according to many leaders — dangerous."

Flint Videos: Returning to the Eastside

UPDATE: The house featured in this video, located at 1635 Oklahoma Avenue, burned last night. Another house gone on the East Side.

Flint Videos: A Stroll Around Vehicle City

Flint Video: Goodbye, Central High

Goodbye, Central High from Dude! (ironic) Productions on Vimeo.

For more material on the Flint Central High School farewell gathering on June 12, 2009, go here.

Flint Video: At Home in Carriage Town

Nathan Murphy: At Home in Carriage Town from Dude! (ironic) Productions on Vimeo.

I'm still wading through some of the footage I shot in June while I was reporting in Flint. As you can tell, I'm learning on the job when it comes to video, but this material might augment the stories I wrote for Slate and The New York Times. Or you may wonder why people trained as print journalists try to create video.

Rebecca Fedewa and Nathan Murphy were my closest neighbors when I was staying in Carriage Town. I saw them out with their two dogs my first day in Flint. I wanted to introduce myself, but it looked like they were just about to head inside, so I started jogging across their huge yard yelling "Hi! Excuse me!" Of course, they had no idea who I was and I probably looked somewhat deranged. (Note: Do not run at people you don't know in Flint.) Thankfully, they didn't turn the dogs loose on me. "When someone we don't know comes at us like that, they're usually panhandling," Nathan told me.

Once the awkward introduction was over, we got along fine and they were very patient over the next few weeks when I interviewed them repeatedly. Here's an excerpt from the Times article:

Seven years ago, Rebecca Fedewa and Nathan Murphy paid $90,000 for a property that takes up five city lots. Standing near the hot tub on the back deck of their two-story cornflower-blue house, the couple can take in their herb and vegetable garden, compost heap and the various fruit trees and berry bushes they planted in the yard, where their two dogs have plenty of room to run.

“I grew up in Lansing, and when I told people I was moving to Flint they were like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ ” said Ms. Fedewa, 36, the executive director of the Flint River Watershed Coalition. “But we never had a lot of apprehension about moving here. When we lived in various suburbs, we were never engaged in our community at all.”

They decided to buy in part because she liked being able to walk to her office in downtown Flint. They haven’t been disappointed.

“Now we know everybody,” she said. “You have a hard time getting your yard work done because people stop by to talk. You really feel like you’re part of something.”

Mr. Murphy, a 38-year-old environmental policy analyst with the Michigan Senate Democrats who commutes to Lansing, says he sometimes gets surprised reactions when he tells people he lives near downtown Flint. He likes to respond that he has a half-acre of land and can still walk to the Soggy Bottom Bar.

“The entire time we’ve been here, the state has drifted through a recession year after year, yet things have slowly gotten better in Carriage Town,” Mr. Murphy said. “Now the rest of the country has caught our recession, but the big projects are starting to come through here and it seems like things are picking up faster than ever.”

Flint Video: Gerry Godin Returns to Buick City

Gerry Godin and the Death of Buick City from Dude! (ironic) Productions on Vimeo.

In June 2009, Gerry Godin, the publisher of All Things Buick, gave me a tour of Oak Park near the former site of Buick City, where he worked for 25 years. We spent the rest of the day driving around town in his Park Avenue, eating lunch at Angelo's, and touring the "Hardwood" Smith House. Read all about it here.