Utah Phillips presents the story of America in conflict between labor and wealth and reveals a vision of hope built on solidarity of the working class.
Utah crisscrossed the country on freight trains in search of teachers that would help him understand the world and his place in it. As a folk singer he enchanted his audience with humor and insight and taught them the lessons he had learned while tramping about an America rarely seen. Later in life, Utah settled in Nevada City, California. From there he produced a radio program that brought his traveling show to the audience of the airwaves and committed it to a permanent recording, this was "Loafer’s Glory: The Hobo Jungle of the Mind
Contained within the episodes of the radio program "Loafer’s Glory" is the story of an America rarely seen. Utah describes the conditions of the past two centuries as inexorably caught up in conflict between the working class and the “ownership class” with the later having enjoyed ultimate dominance for hundreds of years, building massive fortunes on the backs of the workers, sending them to labor in the fields and factories and sending them to fight in a perpetual state of war. He also relates a vision of hope for a future built on the solidarity of the working class, disempowering the ownership class by refusing their wars through pacifism, refusing their working conditions through labor organizing and refusing the necessity of their existence by creating voluntary combinations of like-minded people to get the work of the world done without “the boss” and without the state and then teaching the next generation to do the same.
"Tales from the Long Memory" is a four-part documentary series narrated by U. Utah Phillips based on his radio program "Loafer’s Glory: The Hobo Jungle of the Mind." The directive is to educate about nineteenth and twentieth century class warfare and to make a direct link to the present day and the continuation of similar conditions and struggles. His narration of songs, stories, and poetry combine into an overall arch covering one main topic per episode; they are labor, poverty, civil rights and peace.
The objective is to make this documentary series available to as many persons and organizations as possible it is thereby the intention of the producers to make them free to the public. All four episodes of "Tales From The Long Memory" will ultimately be available to view and download online for free, physical copies will be available at a minimum donation and we will encourage free community screenings in as many venues as possible.