Dust Bowl Okies in US Culture

Every July day has Laborfest events, some of which are missing from the red letter listings. This "al fresco" textbook for all of us will teach the importance of a general strike which we need to put an end to the profit motive that is the cause of the budget "crisis" and war. On July 20 at 7 p.m., Modern Times Bookstore hosts a free book reading and discussion of the poor people of Oklahoma who suffered loss of their farms from the dust storms, described in a book by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a native of the area.

July 20 (Monday) 7:00 PM (Free) Modern Times Bookstore , 888 Valencia St., San Francisco (near 16th St and 24th St BART)

Dust-Bowl Okies in US Culture - Reading and discussion
By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
How did a people so filled with a populist and socialist tradition in Oklahoma, and in the early years as Dust Bowl migrants in California, come to form the most conservative constituencies in California bringing men like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan to state and eventually national power? Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie, will discuss and read from her own work and that of the late Wilma Elizabeth MacDaniel (the “Okie Bard” of the Central Valley), Woody Guthrie, Merle Haggard, and John Steinbeck.
See also:
http://www.reddirtsite.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilma_Elizabeth_McDaniel
http://www.woodyguthrie.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie
http://merlehaggard.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merle_Haggard
http://www.steinbeck.org/MainFrame.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck
http://www.laborfest.net/2009schedule.htm