{"id":16661,"date":"2018-03-07T16:47:50","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T00:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=blog&p=16661"},"modified":"2025-02-14T11:20:40","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T19:20:40","slug":"from-jane-to-dolores-agnes-to-elsa-documentaries-on-unheralded-women-who-made-history","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/from-jane-to-dolores-agnes-to-elsa-documentaries-on-unheralded-women-who-made-history\/","title":{"rendered":"From Jane to Dolores, Agn\u00e8s to Elsa, Documentaries on Unheralded Women Who Made History"},"content":{"rendered":"

In celebration of Women’s History Month<\/a>\u00a0(every March), we focus on great recent documentaries about great women, all who forged their own path in times and places where that wasn’t expected or encouraged, especially for a woman.<\/span><\/p>\n

As director Brett Morgen told WBURG of<\/span> Jane<\/span><\/i><\/a> (2017), his documentary about famed researcher Jane Goodall<\/strong>, \u201cThis is not a film about science\u2026 This is a love story about a woman and her work.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Dolores Huerta<\/b><\/p>\n

Everyone knows C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez, but few know the name of Dolores Huerta, the woman who co-founded UFW, the nation’s first labor union protecting farm workers. She coined the rallying phrase “S\u00ed se puede<\/em>,” which became Barack Obama’s campaign slogan “Yes we can.” (Obama thanked her in person at the Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony in 2012.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Peter Bratt’s documentary about Huerta shows that she was alongside Ch\u00e1vez every step of the way. Having already gotten legislation passed ensuring public assistance for non-citizens, Huerta and her seven children relocated to Medina, California to live with the farm workers. Like Ch\u00e1vez, she was at every picket and every negotiation with the growers. But while he didn’t believe a nationwide union was possible in their lifetime, she did.<\/span><\/p>\n