State Of The Nation Welcome to State of the Nation, a five-part series about North Carolina's pivotal role in American history over the past 50 years. Norma Rae was a lie. Maybe lie is too strong. And maybe that reference is a bit dated. But still, watching the movie coming up on 40 years later, the message that it wants to sit with you as the credits roll feels more like a half-truth; a prettier lie, then. A piece without a realistic end—there’s not much money to be made in a film with a climax of a mill closing up shop. But Norma Rae exists as a pop-culture historical moment nonetheless, one preserved by the United States Library of Congress in 2011. If you’ve seen the film, you remember one thing, it’s the ending. It’s Sally Field standing atop a table with her “UNION” sign while the deafening looms on the floor are switched off one-by-one in a final, victorious show of support. The union wins the vote by a narrow margin, and Norma ends … [Read more...] about The Murder of Mill Town, USA