This week’s Film Clip Friday post highlights The Proud Valley, a feature film set in the coalfields of south Wales starring American actor and singer Paul Robeson. This is one of many ways that Robeson expressed solidarity with mining communities. The story is that Robeson met a delegation of Welsh miners on a hunger march in 1929 and was attracted by their group singing. As a result he helped raise funds and other support for Welsh mining communities.
Paul Robeson was invited to perform with the Treorchy men’s choir at the national Eistedfodd (a festival of Welsh culture) in 1957, but the US government had revoked his passport because he refused to disavow communism.
Here is a trailer for The Proud Valley, directed by Penrose Tennyson: