Matewan Screening @ the North Adams Public Library
Start: Wednesday, February 11, 2026•05:30 PM
Location: North Adams Public Library, 3rd Floor Community Room• 74 Church St, North Adams , MA 01247 US
Join the Western MA Area Labor Federation and the North Adams Public Library for a free screening of John Sayles’ classic 1987 film Matewan.
Written and directed by John Sayles, this wrenching historical drama recounts the true story of a West Virginia coal town where the local miners’ struggle to form a union rose to the pitch of all-out war in 1920. When Matewan’s miners go on strike, organizer Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper, in his film debut) arrives to help them, uniting workers white and black, Appalachia-born and immigrant, while urging patience in the face of the coal company’s violent provocations. With a crackerjack ensemble cast—including James Earl Jones, David Strathairn, Mary McDonnell, and Will Oldham—and Oscar-nominated cinematography by Haskell Wexler, Matewan taps into a rich vein of Americana with painstaking attention to local texture, issuing an impassioned cry for justice that still resounds today.
If you have any questions, please email Assistant Library Director Ryan Miller at rmiller@northadams-ma.gov or give the library a call.
Funded through the generosity of the Friends of the NAPL!