We Work Again Director: Uncredited (produced under the direction of the Federal Works Agency) Studio: Works Progress Administration (WPA) / U.S. Government film unit Starring: Real-life African American WPA workers and participants Release Date: 1937 Runtime: 15 minutes (approx.) Format: Black-and-white, documentary short Country: United States Language: English Genres: Documentary | Educational | Historical | Propaganda Summary: We Work Again is a New Deal-era documentary short highlighting the employment opportunities created for African Americans during the Great Depression through the Works Progress Administration. It showcases programs in construction, education, health, and the arts, with a particular focus on Black communities who benefited from job training and federal support. The film also emphasizes the cultural contributions of African Americans, especially through the arts, featuring the Federal Theatre Project’s all-Black production of Macbeth directed by Orson Welles. Background: Produced in 1937 as part of the WPA’s effort to document and promote the achievements of the New Deal, the film served both as a historical record and as government propaganda to highlight progress in addressing unemployment. It provides rare footage of African American life and labor during the 1930s, and is historically significant for its scenes of Welles’s “Voodoo Macbeth,” a landmark in Black theatre history. Today, it is valued both as a social document and as an artifact of New Deal film production. Trivia: The film contains some of the only surviving motion-picture footage of the 1936 Voodoo Macbeth staged in Harlem. It was made under the supervision of the WPA’s Federal Works Agency, with no traditional Hollywood studio involvement. The film is now in the public domain and preserved by the U.S. National Archives. Despite being government-sponsored, it stands out as one of the few Depression-era films to prominently showcase African American workers and artists. Hashtags: #WeWorkAgain #NewDealCinema #WPA #1930sDocumentary #PublicDomainFilm #AfricanAmericanHistory #OrsonWelles #VoodooMacbeth