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About Harvey Richards Documentary Films
Harvey Richards (1912 –2001) video and photo images of the 1960s are available in twenty-two documentary films and still photo image galleries that were shot during the years from 1958 to 1982.
Harvey Richards chose sides
Harvey Richards chose sides. As a movement photographer in the age before the internet, he used photography to help the civil rights, peace, ecology and the labor movement causes he believed in. He worked on his own, independently, with analog film and sound equipment to advance these causes on the front lines of social conflict when the mainstream mass media was absent and hostile, especially in the early years of the 1960's. Now, decades later, the most often viewed and popular of all his films centers on the Soviet Union in 1961. In collaboration with his wife, Alice Richards, they made two films about the conditions of women and children in a socialist society. His last film made in 1978 was Tales of Two Systems Video about capitalism, socialism and world resources.
What makes his videos unique, among other things, is his recording of the voices of the rank and file activists he wanted to help. His civil rights films made in Mississippi in 1963 and 1964 offered share croppers unscripted opportunities to tell the world what their struggle for voting rights was all about. His films on California farm workers contain farm worker voices. His mining film, Perch of the Devil, made in Butte, Montana in 1960 contains the miner's voices. During the 1960's, movement organizations who used his documentaries as fundraisers, organizing films and outreach vehicles included the United Farm Workers, the United Packinghouse Workers Union, the Sierra Club, Women for Peace, and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. All his films are available on DVD and can be streamed and downloaded. (See individual film listings.) Over 1000 of his photo images are available for viewing in galleries on this web site. All films and photos are available for purchase and licensing.
Knowing Our History Is the First Step to Changing Our World
Unique Documentary Videos about the 1960's
List of the Documentary Films by Harvey Richards
In Chronological Order
Throughout the 1960s, it was a common sight at local Bay Area demonstrations of any size to see Richards standing atop his station wagon or van, two still cameras around his neck, looking through a tripod mounted motion picture camera. During his active years making documentary films, from 1958 to 1978, Richards produced twenty two documentary films listed below.
1. Factory Farms, 37 minutes, 1959
2. The Harvesters, 18 minutes, 1960
3. Perch of the Devil, 24 minutes, 1960
4. Everyman, 21 minutes, 1962
5. Women for Peace, 24 minutes, 1962
6. Uno Veinticinco, 15 minutes, 1962
7. A Visit to the Soviet Union, Part 1: Women of Russia, 36 minutes, 1962
8. A Visit to the Soviet Union, Part 2: Far From Moscow, 33 minutes, 1962
9. The Stump Makers, 22 minutes, 1963.
10. Freedom March, 10 minutes, 1963
11. Freedom Bound, 27 minutes, 1963
12. We’ll Never Turn Back, 31 minutes, 1963
13. Wasted Woods, 18 minutes, 1964
14. Dream Deferred, 34 minutes, 1964
15. Decision in the Streets, 35 minutes, 1965
16. Hot Damn!, 15 minutes, 1965
17. The Land Is Rich, 27 minutes, 1966
18. No Greater Cause, 19 minutes, 1968
19. Warning! Warning!, 22 minutes, 1970
20. Timber Tigers, 23 minutes, 1971
21. Vanishing Redwoods, 28 minutes, 1975
22. A Tale of Two Systems, 20 minutes, 1978
MEDIA – For photos & interviews: Paul Richards (510) 967 5577; paulrichards@estuarypress.com
