Volunteers sought to help transport people to medical appointments

GREENFIELD — LifePath has a program to help older people get to medical appointments that matches local volunteers with individuals in need of transportation or medical advocacy.

The organization currently has a waiting list of people in need of transportation assistance and is seeking volunteers.

All LifePath volunteers receive training, supervision and mileage reimbursement. Call 413-773-5555 to learn more or visit lifepathma.org/volunteer.

Law Day events planned this week

Law Day 2024 events will be offered at Franklin and Hampshire county courthouses this week with public presentations on the topic of preserving democracy. School groups have registered to attend and the public is invited as well.

Constitutional law scholar and voting rights advocate John Bonifaz, co-founder and president of Free Speech for People, a national nonprofit whose mission is to defend the Constitution, will be the keynote speaker at two events held on Wednesday, May 1, at the Franklin County Justice Center in Greenfield and Friday, May 3, at the Hampshire County Courthouse in Northampton. Both events will start at 9 a.m.

Bonifaz will be joined by his daughter, Marisol Bonifaz, an Amherst High School student and founder of Generation Ratify Amherst, now called Amherst Young Feminist Party.

Law Day is an event organized and promoted annually by the American Bar Association to celebrate and educate the public about the rule of law and its role in a democracy.

The first Law Day event was held in 1958.

Locally, Law Day events are organized jointly by the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, the bar associations of Hampshire and Franklin counties, and staff members from the Trial Court at the respective courthouses.

Following the presentations, student groups will participate in guided tours of the courthouses.

Teachers who are interested in bringing students groups should email laurie.loisel@mass.gov.

Radio documentary to explore labor conflicts in Greenfield

SPRINGFIELD — New England Public Media (NEPM) will premiere a new radio documentary, “At Sword’s Point,” on Saturday, May 4, at noon on 88.5 FM, with a repeat broadcast on Sunday, May 5, at 3 p.m.

The documentary will also be available on demand at nepm.org/swordspoint.

Produced by Ian Coss and hosted by local public historian Tom Goldscheider, this one-hour program will delve into the labor conflicts in Greenfield during the early 1950s, a critical period in U.S. history when Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade impacted American labor unions.

Unlike many stories of capitulation to overwhelming pressure, this documentary showcases how a small town’s labor leaders stood their ground and fought back.

“This project is every historian’s dream,” Goldscheider said in a statement. “I stumbled onto a cache of union meeting records and newspaper clippings from the 1940s that allowed me to reassemble a piece of local history that had been completely forgotten. The story of what happened in Greenfield is really a window into a much larger story that speaks to possibilities in our present day. Manufacturing and democratic labor unions are in the news again. I also see this as a cautionary tale about how unions can be divided and defeated, or not; and about what happens when the rule of law is subverted to a hyper-partisan political agenda. History matters.”

Listeners will learn about the history of the machine tool industry in Greenfield, once a hub of global innovation, and the formation of the United Electrical Workers Union (UE).

The documentary highlights a largely forgotten chapter of labor history through dramatic reenactments and expert commentary.

“I think for my generation, the millennials, there is just so much we don’t know about labor unions and labor history, because we grew up at a time when organized labor was in decline,” Coss said in a statement. “The reason I love this story about Greenfield and the Red Scare is that it illuminates so vividly what the labor movement used to mean in this country, and also how we lost it. Yet it’s still a story about hope; it imagines another way the country could have gone, and maybe could still go.”

“At Sword’s Point” is produced with support from New England Public Media, Mass Humanities, Greenfield’s Museum of Our Industrial Heritage, and the Greenfield and Montague cultural councils.

For more information and to listen to the trailer, visit nepm.org/swordspoint.