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Let's Talk Human Rights

Remembering Julia Reichert

By Joel Pruce

The Human Rights Center grieves the departure of Julia Reichert, teacher, mentor, agitator, and filmmaker, who died on December 1. Julia’s half-century of work centered feminist and working class struggles for rights and justice and insisted that all people are endowed with humanity and voice. As a pillar of the greater Dayton community, Julia was a familiar presence at rallies, protests, and communal events. As a celebrated documentarian, Julia’s productions applied an intersectional lens to show how people of different backgrounds and unique experiences may face the same headwinds in the pursuit of dignity.

I first met Julia, and her partner and collaborator Steve Bognar, at a backyard party in the neighborhood that adopted us when we moved to Dayton over ten years ago. They were working on a project called, Reinvention Stories, which featured local residents rebounding from various challenges, particularly economic hardship experienced as a result of the 2008 crisis. Julia and Steve circulated among the crowd with cameras and prompted people to simply be and smile. Nothing special. No explicit purpose except to capture a moment in the life of someone they didn’t even know. It bears foregrounding how radical it is, the suggestion that everyone can be the worthy subject of a photograph or an interview because we are all people with stories of significance.

When the HRC set out to pilot the Moral Courage Project in 2015, Julia and Steve were my first stop. With no background in media production, I sought advice from experts who provided strong examples I hoped only to imitate. They said, you never can know what direction a project may take, despite all the planning, and in order to be prepared to receive and adapt, you must embark with big, open eyes. Julia and Steve instructed me to cultivate a team equipped to enter spaces with humility, guided by the imperative to build trusting and reciprocal relationships.

Julia’s work exemplifies not only how to implement this textbook advice but also why it matters. I taught their films The Last Truck (2009) and American Factory (2019) for years because they possess the singular quality of treating workers as agents with power in spite of the immense structural forces that reinforce and reproduce the interests of the managerial and ownership classes. Both films offer a tender and understated internationalism, one often missing from contemporary discussions on the political left. There is no demonizing “China” and certainly no scapegoating of Chinese workers. Instead, the films, especially American Factory, establish workers’ struggles as bound up together across national and social divides as all struggles for justice and rights truly are.

Neither film is rosy or glamorous; both narrate tales of defeat. But in struggle, regardless of the outcome, workers build collective strength. Even loss and pain can be the source of joy, fortitude, and solidarity. The journey across the horizon to a just future is long and slow and paved with failure but in the struggle itself we can find hope. Yes, history is written by the victors and that’s why documenting our movements is so critical. We must be the authors of our own history, so it is not erased or forgotten. 

In March 2021, the HRC hosted a virtual screening of 9 to 5: The Story of a Movement (2019), which chronicles the unionization efforts of female clerical workers in the 1970s and 1980s. Over one-hundred people attended and dozens remained after for a live talk-balk with Julia and Steve, who stayed long to generously answer questions. The film is instructive for many reasons. Most notably, it presents a literal blueprint for workers in any sector who seek to place checks on bosses that harass and exploit. The stories they capture are universal and remain poignant and relatable. And that relatability is made possible by a presentation that is honest and humane, allowing the women to speak for themselves.

It’s so key and so fundamental and also so rare: There are no voiceless people, only listeners with untrained ears. A producer interested in raising consciousness among the audience needs only to offer up portraits of ordinary people going about their lives fighting for a better world in societies that don’t value them. Mostly show, very little tell. It’s all plain to see if you’re looking.

I’ll miss seeing Julia at the co-op grocer and I’ll miss her invitations to advance screenings of new work. I’ll miss her smile and her toughness. She has left so much behind for us to learn from and to model. 

Our condolences and our love go out to her family and especially to Steve. We have enormous shoes to fill. Time to get to work.


Joel R. Pruce is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Director of Applied Research and Learning at the Human Rights Center, where he also coordinates the Moral Courage Project.

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