Left on Pearl

The stirring Left On Pearl documents how a march to honor International Women’s Day in Boston during the early 1970’s shifted course in more ways than one when a group of women ignored the planned route and turned left down Pearl Street to occupy 888 Memorial Drive, a Harvard-owned former knitting factory they intended to take over as a women’s center. What ensued was a 10-day standoff with local authorities as the women refused to back down. The film offers a fascinating demonstration of intersectionality in action, as the women’s cause meets up with the gay rights movement, as well as the push for the university to build low-income housing to make up for the homes it had demolished in the name of expansion. Ultimately, it offers a timely examination into the power of protest to achieve some much-needed social change.

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