A precedent-setting First Amendment case started in an apple orchard near Los Angeles...

Come to the Brecht Forum

and watch a short segment of Judy Branfman's documentary-in-progress

cops with girlThe Land of Orange Groves and Jails

Sunday, November 25 - 7 pm

at the Brecht Forum

122 West 27th Street - 10th floor

Discussion with Director Judy Branfman;
 Paul Mishler, Historian and author of “Raising Reds: The Young Pioneers, Radical Summer Camps, and Political Culture in the United States;”
and Lisa Maya Knauer, Artist/film-maker, and Brecht Forum board member

For the crime of flying a red flag over a summer camp in 1929, passionate young Yetta Stromberg was sentenced to one to ten years in California's San Quentin State Prison. She became the defendent in a U.S. Supreme Court case, Stromberg v. California - one of the first to affirm our free speech rights.

The Land of Orange Groves and Jails, a one-hour video documentary-in-progress meant for classrooms, public TV, and community venues, tells the story of Yetta (the director's great-aunt) and her friends - young, mainly Jewish Yetta at campactivists from Los Angeles' working-class who were targeted by LA's anti-union business community and the LAPD Red Squad.  It explores the free speech movement of volatile Depression era Los Angeles - and illustrates how activism in the 1920s set a powerful precedent for today's struggles.

Donations to help match a challenge grant from the California Council for the Humanities will happily be accepted - The Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, a vital community archive documenting the social justice movements of Southern California, is the non-profit fiscal sponsor for the film.

The Land of Orange Groves and Jails has received support from the California Council for the Humanities; National Endowment for the Humanities; Yablon Foundation; Pacific Pioneer Fund; Dianne Middleton Foundation; and numerous individuals.

For more information: e-mail branfman@ucla.edu

"Southern California is proud of the title [The Land of Orange Groves and Jails], first conferred upon it by the 'wobblies' during the criminal syndicalist prosecutions. Southern California has now acquired another lot of political prisoners, and this time the glory of the achievement accrues to the 'orange belt' ...Now [Yetta] will no longer study social problems in the University of California, but in a much more realistic school, the women's department of San Quentin Prison...She received a double sentence because of the very special and aggravating series of crimes which were proved against her....Yetta, it seems, taught the children history..."
    Upton Sinclair 1929

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