Mining Review 2nd Year No. 11

1949-07
Sound
10m

American actor and singer Paul Robeson visits an Edinburgh colliery, where he regales miners with a rendition of 'I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hall Last Night'.

The highlight of this 1949 issue is the visit of American actor and singer Paul Robeson to Woolmet Colliery near Edinburgh. Robeson was also a renowned (and often persecuted) left-wing political activist and he made several visits to British mining communities. On this occasion he sings 'I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hall Last Night' for miners in the canteen, a song about an American trade unionist who was allegedly framed on a murder charge and executed in 1915.

Robeson had long been something of a hero to the British mining community, ever since he starred in the film Proud Valley (d. Pen Tennyson, 1940) as an American sailor stranded in Cardiff who finds work in a Welsh colliery (the newsreel opens with a short clip from the film).The other segments of the newsreel are Safety First, a report on reducing accidents in mines, and Paying For It; an item on the increasing cost of coal.

Black Britain on Film

Striking, illuminating and sometimes surprising images of black culture, community and characters, spanning over a century of British film and TV.

From some of the earliest appearances at the dawn of the 20th century to groundbreaking postwar documentaries and contemporary features, this collection charts changing attitudes and hidden histories. Here are the trailblazers, the icons, the stereotypes, the controversies. These richly varied films uncover sometimes surprising histories of black culture and community. They tackle troubling issues of race, representation and identity. And they highlight some of the best of black British filmmaking, from the work of pioneers Horace Ové and Menelik Shabazz to later innovators John Akomfrah and Ngozi Onwurah