FROM THESE ROOTS, and WEALTH OF A NATION (1966)
Directed by William Greaves
40 minutes
" Wealth of a Nation started out as A Nation of Dissenters . The United States Information Agency (USIA, who commissioned the film) wanted to do a film showing, in Cold War terms, that America was friendly to dissent, a free society where people could speak their minds. I filmed Madalyn Murray, Saul Alinsky, Lawrence Lipton (he wrote The Holy Barbarians [published in 1959]), and various other people had researched–but when the USIA realized who I was focusing on, they decided they didn't want that much dissent! Finally, George and McKinney Russell, the wonderful policy guy for the USIA, decided it would be a film dealing with 'freedom of individual expression.' Martin Luther King was in the film and a lot of artists." – William Greaves