Directed by: Ryan Joseph, Kathryn Barnier, and Kelly Anderson | 2023 | United States | 83 mins.
In 1959 New York City announced a “slum clearance plan” by Robert Moses that would displace 2,400 working-class families from Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Guided by the belief that urban renewal should benefit—not displace—residents, a working mother named Frances Goldin and her neighbors formed the Cooper Square Committee (CSC) and launched a campaign to save the neighborhood.
Over five decades they fought politicians, developers, white flight, government abandonment, blight, violence, arson, drugs, and gentrification. Through tenacious organizing and hundreds of community meetings, they established the state’s first community land trust—a diverse, permanently affordable neighborhood in the heart of the “real estate capital of the world.”
"Rabble Rousers is at once a history of New York’s Lower East Side through the eyes of tenant organizers, and a how-to guide to beating the rich and powerful at their own game. And Frances Goldin is an utterly unforgettable heroine. It’s a joy to watch, and will make you want to go out and raise hell."
— Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Won't Love You Back and Necessary Trouble