Untold Stories Features Two Programs on Ford Plant

MLA members, particularly in the metro area, are very much aware of the far-reaching economic loss of the Ford plant jobs, Mayor Coleman's Ford Site Planning Task Force, involvement of the State's Dislocated Worker Program--and library outreach. Untold Stories will feature two programs on Ford:

7 p.m., Tuesday, April 24--Visit the Training Center at the Ford Assembly Plant for "On the Line: The Ford Plant in Oral History and Verse," 966 Mississippi River Blvd. S., Saint Paul. In the late 1990s, UAW Local 879 and the Minnesota Labor Interpretive Center interviewed twenty-five retired auto workers as part of an oral history program documenting the experiences of working at the Ford Assembly Plant. Listen to excerpts from these interviews in a dramatic retelling, read by recently retired auto workers. In the second half of the program, Ford workers Denny Dickhausen and Joe Callahan, members of a writer's workshop created by poet Mark Nowak (Shut Up, Shut Down), share poems inspired by life and labor at Ford. Also, a poetic exchange with Ford workers in South Africa, who share their own stories.

7 p.m., Monday, April 30--Continue the conversation about the Ford Assembly Plant at the Merriam Park Branch Library, 1831 Marshall Ave., Saint Paul. Join a panel of historians, labor activists, and auto workers to discuss the history of labor at the Ford Assembly Plant and look to the future. Panelists: Brian McMahon, a historian completing a book on the history of the Ford Motor Company in Minnesota; Dave Beal, co-author of Manufacturing Works; and Rickey Brown, retired Ford worker.

Untold Stories labor-history series is sponsored by the Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library. Untold Stories events are free and open to the public. For more info, visit www.thefriends.org or call 651/222-3242.