Tuesday, May 3, 2011
6-8 p.m.
Main Library, Lower Level, Koret Auditorium
"Captain" Josh Williams is a 75-year-old retired longshoreman living in San Francisco. Born in Texas in 1934, the son of a black sharecropper, Williams landed in San Francisco where he became a proud member of the longshore union, ILWU Local 10.
At the union, Captain Josh founded his pride and joy in 1965, his Drill Team. Since then he has trained over 300 union members to march, sing out and wave their steel prop “hooks”, a far cry from the hooks used years ago to pick up sacks of coffee and bales of cotton and rubber weighing hundreds of pounds. He trains them to stamp and swagger, an army drill team with some Issac Hayes thrown in, and always with pride in being UNION!
But Josh is 75, and when they march – everything from St. Patrick’s Day Parades to the Million Man March to, of course, Labor Day Parades, they cover miles. And Josh has arthritis creeping into his knees. So what happens when the Captain goes? Can the baton be passed?
Film screening to be followed by a panel with filmmaker Ian Ruskin, San Francisco State University professor Robert Cherny, and members of the Drill Team.
6-8 p.m.
Main Library, Lower Level, Koret Auditorium
"Captain" Josh Williams is a 75-year-old retired longshoreman living in San Francisco. Born in Texas in 1934, the son of a black sharecropper, Williams landed in San Francisco where he became a proud member of the longshore union, ILWU Local 10.
At the union, Captain Josh founded his pride and joy in 1965, his Drill Team. Since then he has trained over 300 union members to march, sing out and wave their steel prop “hooks”, a far cry from the hooks used years ago to pick up sacks of coffee and bales of cotton and rubber weighing hundreds of pounds. He trains them to stamp and swagger, an army drill team with some Issac Hayes thrown in, and always with pride in being UNION!
But Josh is 75, and when they march – everything from St. Patrick’s Day Parades to the Million Man March to, of course, Labor Day Parades, they cover miles. And Josh has arthritis creeping into his knees. So what happens when the Captain goes? Can the baton be passed?
Film screening to be followed by a panel with filmmaker Ian Ruskin, San Francisco State University professor Robert Cherny, and members of the Drill Team.
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