Did you ever see “Blue Collar”, with Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto and Richard Pryor (in a terrific dramatic performance)? Another masterpiece. I saw that in Knoxville soon after it came out, with a mostly black audience. As you would expect, they were there to see Pryor, and were as raucous and enthusiastic as you might expect.

But about half way through the film the plot gradually went from funny to very, very serious. When it was all over, the audience slowly walked out, very quietly, with the words of the Yaphet Kotto character echoing in their heads. You could have heard a pin drop.

Smokey James: They pit the lifers against the new boy and the young against the old. The black against the white. Everything they do is to keep us in our place.

Many of my ancestors came from Ireland during this time. So it is a topic of personal interest and I agree with the contents of your post. Some of those feeling still linger in subtle ways. Remember that JFK had to tell the nation that he didn’t take orders from the Pope. I dated a girl in the early 80′s whose family was upset that she was dating a Catholic.

You might be interested in the story of the “Know Nothing” Party, whose basic platform was being anti-Catholic.

In addition, I’ve been reading about the Molly Maguires lately. They were an Irish secret society that operated in the coal region of Pennsylvania during this time period, monkey-wrenching their grievances against the man. This is where my predecessors found the American Dream.

I haven’t seen the movie in a very long time.