Long Train Running: A History of the Oakland Blues (1981)

Long Train Running: A History of the Oakland Blues

6.0 29 mins Documentary 1981

University of California Berkeley

Director(s): Peter Webster Marlon Riggs

Marlon Riggs and Peter Webster’s thesis project reflects on the heyday of Oakland blues in the late 1940s and ’50s, when an influx of African American shipyard workers mostly hailing from Louisiana and Texas arrived in the Bay Area. Combining vintage photographs, archival footage, interviews, and performances at venues like Eli’s Mile High Club, Riggs and Webster chronicle Oakland’s vibrant past while revealing an uncertain present.

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