Harvest of Shame

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Harvest of Shame
DVD cover of Harvest of Shame
Genre	Documentary
Running time	55 min.
Director(s)	Fred W. Friendly
Producer(s)	Fred W. Friendly Edward R. Murrow David Lowe
Starring	Edward R. Murrow
Country of origin	USA
Language(s)	English
Original channel	CBS
Release date(s)	November 24, 1960
IMDb profile
All Movie Guide profile

Harvest of Shame is a 1960 made for television documentary presented by broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow on CBS. It shows the plight of American migrant agricultural workers.

"Harvest of Shame" was an installment of the venerable documentary series CBS Reports, widely seen as a successor to Murrow and Fred W. Friendly's 1951-58 See It Now show. (Friendly was executive producer of CBS Reports, of which Murrow was an occasional host.) Murrow and Friendly's colleague Ed Morgan had taken up the issue during his CBS Radio Network commentaries. Murrow biographer Joe Persico says Friendly decided the issue was a natural for Murrow, long seen as a champion of the oppressed.

While Murrow and Friendly are often seen as the forces behind the show, broadcast historians such as the late Edward Bliss, Jr. have also given credit to "Harvest of Shame" producer/reporter David Lowe. Lowe did much of the legwork, including a number of the interviews featured on the installment.

The program originally aired just after Thanksgiving 1960. The Dec. 5, 1960 edition of Time quoted producer Lowe as saying, "We felt that by scheduling the program the day after Thanksgiving, we could stress the fact that much of the food cooked for Thanksgiving throughout the country was picked by migratory workers. We hoped that the pictures of how these people live and work would shock the consciousness of the nation."

It opened and closed with lines that were pure Murrow. The opening was voiced over footage of migrant workers, including a number of African-Americans, being recruited:

This scene is not taking place in the Congo. It has nothing to do with Johannesburg or Cape Town. It is not Nyasaland or Nigeria. This is Florida. These are citizens of the United States, 1960. This is a shape-up for migrant workers. The hawkers are chanting the going piece rate at the various fields. This is the way the humans who harvest the food for the best-fed people in the world get hired. One farmer looked at this and said, "We used to own our slaves; now we just rent them."

The closing:

The migrants have no lobby. Only an enlightened, aroused and perhaps angered public opinion can do anything about the migrants. The people you have seen have the strength to harvest your fruit and vegetables. They do not have the strength to influence legislation. Maybe we do. Good night, and good luck."