Harlan Country, USA in relation to Rose and Thomas, Walker, and Zelditch

Harlan Country, USA is a movie set in Kentucky in 1973. It centers on the working-class coal miner men of Harlan who go on strike to fight for better working conditions and pay. Naturally, they come up against much opposition, and learn that their fight for rights will be much more complicated than they anticipated.

In Fred Rose’s article, Toward a Class-Cultural Theory of Social Movements: Reinterpreting New Social Movements, he says that it is distinct class cultures that characterize social movements. Working-class movements will be shaped by the elements of their social class, rather than a particular political stance or a set of beliefs. He says that working-class movements are generally a direct outgrowth of the struggles and oppression felt from other classes, and therefore work to eliminate those struggles and produce immediate change. Middle-class movements, Rose says, tend to pursue universal goals through education and experiences learned from middle-class values, focused more on personal skills and communication. The miners in the movie were men from a struggling working-class who were tired of the lack of good treatment and respect from those in charge. Not only were their working conditions dangerous to their health and protection, but they were paid poorly and would not be able to retire till they were so old that they were already near death. Due to these injustices, a handful of men came together to go on strike and began the process of convincing others to do so as well. Just as Rose said, their initial reasons for coming together and creating a social movement came from their similarities brought about by class, rather than politics or specific values.

In Thomas, Walker, and Zelditch’s article, Legitimacy and Collective Action, they studied the likelihood of people to follow rules vs. getting together as a collective group and break the rules in order to bring about change. They found that “when change is legitimate, mobilizing collective action to correct inequity becomes a routine aspect of ongoing activity; however, when the social organization is legitimated so that change would damage collective purpose, participants behaviorally support the order by not even suggesting change in the social organization – even though it generates what is collectively defined as inequity to their disadvantage.” Several workers in the movie were reluctant to join the strike and union because it went against the rules and the norms. However, the majority of men (and their wives) saw that it was a “legitimate” cause to fight for change for. To them, once a few men had initiated collective action, it was easy to join in together and break the rules in hopes of bringing about a beneficial, positive change.