Free Republic

Hollywood Activists, Or How Norma Rae Got Norma Raed by Ned Rice The cruel exploitation of the impoverished masses has been a staple of Hollywood storytelling since the earliest days of movie making.  In fact, thanks to big-screen classics from The Grapes of Wrath to Slumdog Millionaire you might say that grinding poverty has been a real gold mine for Tinseltown.  Given Hollywood’s progressive politics you might also think that a good chunk of the vast box office earnings inspired by the world’s poor might by now have filtered down to the same unwashed throngs who are, in a sense,...

RALEIGH, N.C. - Crystal Lee Sutton, whose fight to unionize Southern textile plants with low pay and poor conditions was dramatized in the film "Norma Rae," has died. She was 68. Sutton died Friday in a hospice after a long battle with brain cancer, her son, Jay Jordan, said Monday. "She fought it as long as she could and she crossed on over to her new life," he said. Union organizers had targeted J.P. Stevens, then the country's second-largest textile manufacturer , because the industry was deeply entwined in Southern culture and spread across the region's small towns. However, North...