What happened in Pittsburgh last week will not be forgotten for generations, in the same way that many people in this region have not forgotten Sept. 19, 1977, a day many still call “Black Monday.” That’s when the mills started closing in Youngstown and as many jobs were lost as were saved in West Mifflin late last month.

In 1977, then-President Jimmy Carter ignored the pleas of the Central Labor Union to stop steel imports and ease regulations that were hurting the industry. Carter also refused to meet with the union when it traveled to the White House, as then-Ohio Democratic Sen. John Glenn stood on the U.S. Capitol steps with other elected officials while the crowd waved signs reading, “Save the Steel Industry.”

Carter never bothered to send out an aide to receive the petitions when they arrived.

Few legacy news organizations in New York and Washington, D.C., at the time chronicled the hollowing out of communities and the long-term effects on those left behind. Many of these journalists didn’t understand how this started the incremental movement of the working class toward the Republican Party.