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[insects chirping]
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[♪♪♪]
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JOHN POWELL:
You can't understand
the United States history
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without understanding
the role that slavery played.
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It was already
a very formal institution
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by the time United States
became a nation.
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It actually defined the nation.
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IAN HANEY LOPEZ:
Slavery didn't
just end and go away.
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We as a country were formed out
of a compromise with slavery.
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The southern colonies were not
willing to be part of a union,
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part of a national government
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unless the institution
of slavery was protected
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and the price of protecting
that institution
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was disproportionate power
to the South politically
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and it carries through today.
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JODY ALLEN:
We possibly could have lightened
some of the consequences
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of slavery if there had not
been such a concerted effort
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to maintain the differences
between blacks and whites.
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It's kind of like an infection,
I think. It may go away
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but it always bubbles back
up to the top eventually.
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I think that's
what's happening now.
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[alarm blaring]
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[explosions]
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[indistinct shouting]
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- What do we want?
- Justice!
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- When do we want it?
- Now!
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MAN: They're mad. I'm mad.
We should all be mad, man.
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We should all be angry because
of what's going on right now.
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NEWS ANCHOR: Law enforcement sources tell CNN, Roof admitted
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that he shot worshippers
in cold blood
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as they gathered
for a Bible study, Wednesday
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at historic Emanuel AME Church.
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He's chilling motive, one source tells CNN that the 21 year-old
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wanted to start a race war.
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FRANCES CAUSEY: God, nothing ever changes here.
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Why does this keep
happening over and over again?
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I was born in Greensboro,
North Carolina in 1963
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into a world where
white superiority
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was rarely questioned.
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As a child, the only black
people I ever interacted with
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in a meaningful way were
the people who worked for us.
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I loved them like family.
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I felt a huge amount of sadness as a kid
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seeing how they
and other African-Americans
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were treated in the South.
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I didn't understand it.
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I knew something
was deeply wrong
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but it was not okay
to talk about it.
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My longtime friend and producing partner, Sally Holst and I
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shared a similar upbringing.
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SALLY HOLST:
You know, I felt it.
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It was confusion.
It was crazy-making and anger.
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CAUSEY: Like Sally, the sorrow,
anger and lingering questions
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about the racist South
of my childhood
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shadowed me into adulthood.
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I never understood how much
my own uncomfortable journey
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00:04:44,111 --> 00:04:45,492
to talk about this
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was connected to an untold
history of our nation.
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It's hard to be black in a world controlled by white folks.
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00:05:00,023 --> 00:05:03,095
Du Bois said, we always
have the double consciousness.
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00:05:03,579 --> 00:05:06,444
We're trying to be black and meanwhile, you got a white ghost
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hovering over your head
that says,
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"If you don't do this,
you'll get killed.
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If you don't do this,
you won't get no money.
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If you don't do this, nobody
would think you're beautiful.
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If you don't do this, nobody
would think you're smart."
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That's the ghost.
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[♪♪♪]
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[♪♪♪]
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CAUSEY: The transatlantic
slave trade took off
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in the early 18th century
and produced huge profits.
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[♪♪♪]
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GERALD HORNE: One of the reasons
why the United States
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is such an advanced country
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is because of not only slavery
but the slave trade.
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We know that slavery
was financed from places
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like New York, Rhode Island,
Newport and Boston.
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CAUSEY:
One of the reasons Wall Street
was created in the first place
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was to finance
the slave industry.
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Everything from buying slaves
to even mortgaging them.
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HORNE: What you see is not only
the building of more ships
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which employs workers.
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You're seeing the building
of insurance companies
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because Africans are revolting
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and you need to have
insurance policies.
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You see the construction
of banking
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because these voyages
have to be financed
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and therein, you begin
to see the seeds, the kernels
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of an advanced economic system
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and the rise of capitalism is
clearly on the backs of slavery
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and the enslaved Africans.
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[♪♪♪]
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CAUSEY: It was astonishing to me that many of the first Africans
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in the American colonies weren't slaves but indentured servants.
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For a while,
poor blacks and whites
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worked alongside each other.
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POWELL:
The connection between
Europeans and Africans
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was actually quite robust.
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A lot of marriages
formally and informally.
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A lot of children
formally and informally.
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Probably much greater
integration
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between people of African
descent and European descent
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than we have today.
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CAUSEY:
Indentured whites and blacks
worked for their masters
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for five to seven years.
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Africans went from
indentured servitude
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to enslavement gradually.
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One colony, one person
and one law at a time.
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PAUL KIVEL: It started with
the dispossession
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of Native Americans.
So to the concept that
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they didn't actually have title
to the land or deserve the land
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00:08:07,625 --> 00:08:09,419
because they weren't Christians.
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So all of U.S. law around land
and the accumulation of land
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by the English and French and
Spanish was based upon that.
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Europeans felt completely
comfortable going into Africa
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and enslaving people who are
also heathens, non-Christians
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and bringing them to the
new world, to South and Central
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and North America and so
slavery was justified by this.
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It allowed the conquerors
to feel righteous that
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they were in fact doing favors
to whoever they encountered.
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It was all redefined as
a benevolent process.
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POWELL: To most people's mind,
America means white.
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The country was founded by
two groups, Anglos and Saxons,
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Christian protestant,
English-speaking.
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So all these things
get bound up together.
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KIVEL: Just being Christian
was not distinction enough
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to separate who was entitled
to civil rights
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00:09:10,998 --> 00:09:13,035
and respect and resources.
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00:09:13,345 --> 00:09:18,696
So Christianity became
divided into white Christians --
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00:09:18,730 --> 00:09:21,906
really, white male Christians --
then everybody else.
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There was a racial supremacy
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and a religious supremacy
intertwined.
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[bell tolls]
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CAUSEY:
Yet 1,000 black and white
Virginians rose up together
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in rebellion against
rich planters in 1676.
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The rebels wanted more wealth
and power in the new America.
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Nathaniel Bacon
led the uprising.
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POWELL: The Bacon Rebellion was
about the political movement
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00:09:50,486 --> 00:09:51,625
and economic movement.
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00:09:51,660 --> 00:09:54,766
It was people
demanding democracy,
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00:09:54,801 --> 00:09:57,044
a chance to participate
in running the colony,
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Virginia colony
and demanding land.
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00:10:01,670 --> 00:10:03,982
ALLEN: There are these people
coming together
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more along class lines
than race lines.
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00:10:07,089 --> 00:10:09,401
And even though
the colonial government
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was eventually successful,
I think that really scared them.
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POWELL: The elite decided
to split those groups
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and start creating whiteness
in the colonies
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and part of their charge,
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all the men was to be drafted
into slave patrol
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to manage the slaves
for the elites
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00:10:29,801 --> 00:10:33,598
and they always had this role
of allegiance to the elites
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00:10:33,633 --> 00:10:37,015
and managing those
underneath for the elites.
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ALLEN: This notion
of divide and conquer
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to keep poor whites
always knowing
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00:10:45,161 --> 00:10:47,750
that they were
not at the bottom.
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No matter how degraded you may
be as a white, you're white.
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And there's one group below you.
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That seems very simple enough
but it was a very heavy curse.
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CAUSEY: Virginia, where my
ancestors originally settled,
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was the first colony to pass
harsher slave laws
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that legally sealed
this new alliance
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between rich planters
and poor whites.
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00:11:18,919 --> 00:11:21,163
The first kind of
white privilege that we see
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in this country is what was
given to indentured servants
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as they were freed up
to have some land,
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00:11:27,479 --> 00:11:29,447
to have the ability
to be in the militia,
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00:11:29,481 --> 00:11:32,588
in the slave patrols
to get cloth and tools
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00:11:32,622 --> 00:11:35,108
and other things
when they were released.
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They just still didn't have
economic power
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but they had benefits
as white people
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and at the same time,
enslaved Africans had nothing.
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They had no rights, no property.
Nothing in their name at all.
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[♪♪♪]
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CAUSEY: Growing up, I knew both sides of my family owned slaves
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but there was never much
of a conversation about it.
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Our family history haunted me
enough to make this film.
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My most famous ancestor was
a guy named Edmund Pendleton
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who was a judge,
planter and slave owner.
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Pendleton was my uncle
six times removed.
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I had known a bit
about Pendleton's life
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but in my research
for this film,
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I discovered more details
than I ever bargained for.
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ANNE CONKLING:
Pendleton was tall, handsome.
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He was charming.
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He was a brilliant man.
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He was an arch-conservative,
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what we would today
call right-wing extremist.
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He went from being
an arch-conservative
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to being a spokesman
for the revolution.
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00:12:47,283 --> 00:12:50,666
[♪♪♪]
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[gunfire]
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00:13:07,752 --> 00:13:10,893
CAUSEY:
Pendleton became the first governor of the Virginia Colony.
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00:13:11,169 --> 00:13:13,896
And I was kind of proud to learn
that he played a major role
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00:13:13,931 --> 00:13:16,209
in helping to establish
the new nation.
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00:13:17,106 --> 00:13:21,731
CONKLING:
Pendleton drafts the Virginia
Resolution for Independence
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00:13:21,766 --> 00:13:24,665
and that says that the
delegation be instructed
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00:13:24,700 --> 00:13:28,324
to propose to declare
the united colonies free
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00:13:28,359 --> 00:13:31,949
and independent states
absolved from all allegiance
200
00:13:31,983 --> 00:13:36,332
or dependence upon the crown
or parliament of Great Britain.
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00:13:37,471 --> 00:13:39,888
He wrote all those words
which were then given
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00:13:39,922 --> 00:13:43,236
to a Pony Express rider who
carried them to Philadelphia.
203
00:13:43,339 --> 00:13:45,686
When they got to Philadelphia,
they said,
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00:13:45,721 --> 00:13:47,447
Virginia says independence
205
00:13:47,481 --> 00:13:50,036
and all the other colonies
fell into place.
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00:13:50,139 --> 00:13:53,384
[♪♪♪]
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CAUSEY:
But I was really disturbed
to learn that Pendleton
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00:13:58,320 --> 00:14:01,599
was also asked to write
a controversial line
209
00:14:01,633 --> 00:14:04,188
in the Virginia
Declaration of Rights.
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00:14:04,567 --> 00:14:08,054
Words that would
institutionalize white supremacy
211
00:14:08,088 --> 00:14:10,884
and reverberate
throughout U.S. history.
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00:14:11,678 --> 00:14:13,991
I have written
a little bit about
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00:14:14,025 --> 00:14:16,096
Virginia founder,
Edmund Pendleton
214
00:14:16,131 --> 00:14:18,719
and there's not a lot of people
that know very much
215
00:14:18,754 --> 00:14:23,759
about Edmund Pendleton and
Frances is related to Edmund.
216
00:14:24,449 --> 00:14:26,831
As I understand the history,
they said, "Wait a minute.
217
00:14:26,866 --> 00:14:30,421
We can't have these principles
of liberty applying to slaves."
218
00:14:30,524 --> 00:14:33,631
And so he comes up with the line
basically that signals
219
00:14:33,665 --> 00:14:36,945
in kind of coded language
to the other slave owners
220
00:14:36,979 --> 00:14:40,189
that they're going to exclude
the slaves from liberty.
221
00:14:40,327 --> 00:14:43,744
That all men by nature are
equally free and independent
222
00:14:43,779 --> 00:14:45,298
and have certain rights.
223
00:14:45,332 --> 00:14:46,747
And he came up with the line,
224
00:14:46,782 --> 00:14:50,130
"When they enter into
a state of society"
225
00:14:50,165 --> 00:14:51,960
which everyone
understood to mean
226
00:14:51,994 --> 00:14:53,823
that the slaves
would be excluded.
227
00:14:53,927 --> 00:14:56,516
[♪♪♪]
228
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CAUSEY: Slaves weren't
even considered human.
229
00:14:59,277 --> 00:15:02,867
So how would they ever be accepted into civil society?
230
00:15:03,281 --> 00:15:06,250
But still, slavery
was controversial.
231
00:15:06,871 --> 00:15:10,771
I wondered, did Pendleton
and the other founding fathers
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00:15:10,806 --> 00:15:14,051
have a more pressing reason
to break from Great Britain?
233
00:15:16,294 --> 00:15:21,921
HORNE: London had moved
in Somerset's Case in 1772
234
00:15:21,955 --> 00:15:25,027
to abolish slavery
within England.
235
00:15:25,994 --> 00:15:28,444
There was a lot of fear
and suspicion
236
00:15:28,479 --> 00:15:30,688
on this side of the Atlantic
237
00:15:30,722 --> 00:15:33,863
that that particular decision
would have legs.
238
00:15:35,451 --> 00:15:37,557
CAUSEY: I was always taught
the Revolutionary War
239
00:15:37,591 --> 00:15:39,110
was about things
like freedom
240
00:15:39,145 --> 00:15:41,423
and taxation without
representation.
241
00:15:41,837 --> 00:15:44,115
So was independence
from Great Britain
242
00:15:44,150 --> 00:15:47,705
really much more about
preserving slavery?
243
00:15:50,087 --> 00:15:53,814
KIVEL: Almost every founding
father was a slave owner.
244
00:15:54,125 --> 00:15:57,646
Slavery was an integral part
not just of the Southern economy
245
00:15:57,680 --> 00:15:59,648
but the entire Northern economy.
246
00:16:00,338 --> 00:16:04,722
So it was just completely
integrated into the thinking
247
00:16:04,756 --> 00:16:08,277
of the wealthy men
that wrote the Constitution.
248
00:16:09,071 --> 00:16:11,004
MIKE CHURCH: So the fact that
the constitution is a perfect
249
00:16:11,039 --> 00:16:16,320
instrument is just bogus
from the start if you admit
250
00:16:16,354 --> 00:16:18,943
and this is the only truth that
you can arrive at
251
00:16:18,978 --> 00:16:22,291
and because it did not
ban the slavery
252
00:16:22,326 --> 00:16:23,913
and it left it in there
253
00:16:23,948 --> 00:16:26,640
and it left it as an
open-ended question.
254
00:16:26,778 --> 00:16:31,335
Slavery is definitely
one of the root causes
255
00:16:31,369 --> 00:16:34,752
of the current political melees
that we have today.
256
00:16:37,272 --> 00:16:39,308
CAUSEY: My uncle led
Virginia's ratification
257
00:16:39,343 --> 00:16:42,311
of the U.S. Constitution in 1788
258
00:16:42,346 --> 00:16:44,762
which included
the Three-Fifths Compromise.
259
00:16:45,142 --> 00:16:48,076
Slaves were counted
as three-fifths of a voter.
260
00:16:48,283 --> 00:16:49,905
Those slaves couldn't vote.
261
00:16:50,319 --> 00:16:53,322
Because the South had
more slaves than the North,
262
00:16:53,357 --> 00:16:56,636
this gave the South one third
more congressional seats
263
00:16:56,670 --> 00:17:00,709
and electoral votes
for the next 73 years.
264
00:17:01,606 --> 00:17:04,540
Slaveholding interest would
dominate the government
265
00:17:04,575 --> 00:17:06,680
until the outbreak
of the Civil War.
266
00:17:07,405 --> 00:17:11,168
Not surprisingly, five of the first seven U.S. presidents
267
00:17:11,202 --> 00:17:14,309
were from the South
and were slave owners.
268
00:17:17,174 --> 00:17:18,623
HORNE: The stories
have done a disservice
269
00:17:18,658 --> 00:17:21,281
because you would think that
there are all these genteel men
270
00:17:21,316 --> 00:17:23,456
with wigs and bringing ideas
271
00:17:23,490 --> 00:17:26,148
or coming up with all of these
projects and plans.
272
00:17:26,183 --> 00:17:28,599
Yes, they get their hands dirty
fighting the redcoats
273
00:17:28,633 --> 00:17:31,464
but then it's back to dreaming
up Bill of Rights
274
00:17:31,498 --> 00:17:34,087
and constitutions
and other brilliant ideas
275
00:17:34,122 --> 00:17:39,161
and without the sort of muck
and the grime and the dirt
276
00:17:39,196 --> 00:17:43,407
and the blood that's being
shed to build this society.
277
00:18:05,877 --> 00:18:09,053
CAUSEY:
But many more slaves than
is commonly acknowledged
278
00:18:09,088 --> 00:18:12,021
resisted the brutality
or tried to escape.
279
00:18:12,884 --> 00:18:16,025
Others organized and rebelled
against their treatment.
280
00:18:16,957 --> 00:18:20,133
A successful and bloody
revolution led by slaves
281
00:18:20,168 --> 00:18:24,448
in nearby Haiti established
the first black-led Republic
282
00:18:24,482 --> 00:18:25,932
in the world.
283
00:18:26,174 --> 00:18:31,006
This revolt terrified American
slave owners like my ancestors
284
00:18:31,040 --> 00:18:34,872
who feared slave rebellions
would spread to the U.S.
285
00:18:35,528 --> 00:18:37,840
I imagine that's why
we never learned much
286
00:18:37,875 --> 00:18:40,395
about the Haitian revolution
in school.
287
00:18:41,189 --> 00:18:44,330
HORNE: The Haitian Revolution
puts the fear of God,
288
00:18:44,364 --> 00:18:48,920
if I may use that phrase into
the brains of slave owners.
289
00:18:49,300 --> 00:18:54,581
It's a major factor in shedding
light on this Negrophobia,
290
00:18:54,616 --> 00:18:57,032
this fear and hatred
of Africans.
291
00:18:57,308 --> 00:19:01,485
You not only have to think
about the classic slave revolts.
292
00:19:01,588 --> 00:19:05,351
Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey,
Gabriel Prosser.
293
00:19:06,214 --> 00:19:08,561
This free labor
comes with a price.
294
00:19:08,733 --> 00:19:10,977
It comes with a price
of having your throat slit
295
00:19:11,011 --> 00:19:12,358
in the middle of the night.
296
00:19:12,461 --> 00:19:16,810
It comes with the price of
eating your scrambled eggs
297
00:19:16,845 --> 00:19:20,435
in the morning and then keeling
over and dying from the poison.
298
00:19:20,745 --> 00:19:23,990
It comes with a price of your
house going up in flames
299
00:19:24,024 --> 00:19:26,061
and your barn
going up in flames
300
00:19:26,095 --> 00:19:29,651
and all the crops going up in
flames by rebellious Africans.
301
00:19:30,893 --> 00:19:35,070
The kind of tumult that
is gripping North America.
302
00:19:40,765 --> 00:19:43,803
[♪♪♪]
303
00:19:50,982 --> 00:19:53,537
CAUSEY: In the midst
of this national nightmare,
304
00:19:53,571 --> 00:19:56,402
there were white people
who opposed slavery.
305
00:19:57,265 --> 00:20:02,166
There was a growing unease that
this might actually be wrong.
306
00:20:02,408 --> 00:20:04,858
That morally,
it was hard to justify.
307
00:20:06,757 --> 00:20:09,725
CAUSEY: Five Northern states had started to either eliminate
308
00:20:09,760 --> 00:20:12,072
or gradually abolish slavery
309
00:20:12,107 --> 00:20:14,178
and in Virginia of all places,
310
00:20:14,213 --> 00:20:17,906
I discovered a powerful and unusual story from that era
311
00:20:17,940 --> 00:20:20,149
which had been lost to history.
312
00:20:21,703 --> 00:20:26,190
TOM DUCKENFIELD:
We're in Nomini Hall Estate in
Westmoreland County, Virginia.
313
00:20:26,501 --> 00:20:29,366
This is an estate that was
owned by Robert Carter III.
314
00:20:30,090 --> 00:20:34,129
A man who manumitted,
freed my ancestors
315
00:20:34,163 --> 00:20:37,028
with a deed of manumission
in 1791.
316
00:20:37,339 --> 00:20:40,653
So all around here are the land
where my ancestors lived
317
00:20:40,687 --> 00:20:42,689
and worked as slaves
318
00:20:42,724 --> 00:20:46,728
and were eventually freed
gradually over 20 years.
319
00:20:48,247 --> 00:20:51,767
KIVEL:
Carter is a very good example
of one of the richest landowners
320
00:20:51,802 --> 00:20:56,324
in the country who saw
that slavery was wrong
321
00:20:56,358 --> 00:20:58,084
and did something about it.
322
00:20:59,637 --> 00:21:02,744
CAUSEY:
Though he was widely condemned
by other slave owners
323
00:21:02,778 --> 00:21:04,711
and even his own family,
324
00:21:04,746 --> 00:21:09,233
Carter gradually freed
all 452 of his slaves.
325
00:21:11,131 --> 00:21:14,756
LA TONYA LAWSON-JONES:
You can see it in the actual
verbiage of the deed of gift.
326
00:21:14,963 --> 00:21:17,690
He talks about the fact
that he felt
327
00:21:17,724 --> 00:21:21,901
that it was against the
principles of religious justice.
328
00:21:22,384 --> 00:21:25,214
He literally believed that
it was not God's will
329
00:21:25,249 --> 00:21:26,561
to have slaves.
330
00:21:29,184 --> 00:21:32,808
Several of my ancestors
were on that original first 15
331
00:21:32,843 --> 00:21:34,465
that he freed.
332
00:21:34,603 --> 00:21:36,916
One, specifically, Chris Newman.
333
00:21:37,019 --> 00:21:41,196
She was born in 1742
here in America
334
00:21:41,230 --> 00:21:43,612
and she lived here
at Nomini Hall.
335
00:21:44,199 --> 00:21:47,444
When she was freed,
she was 49 years old.
336
00:21:47,823 --> 00:21:49,308
She was a weaver.
337
00:21:51,586 --> 00:21:54,934
DUCKENFIELD:
As freed African Americans,
we had certain advantages.
338
00:21:55,072 --> 00:21:57,454
We had the liberty to go
where we wanted to go.
339
00:21:57,488 --> 00:22:00,042
We had the liberty to work
as much as we wanted to,
340
00:22:00,077 --> 00:22:03,563
to thrive, to provide
for our families.
341
00:22:03,701 --> 00:22:07,049
So we see John Thompson Sr.
owning land
342
00:22:07,084 --> 00:22:08,706
shortly after he was manumitted.
343
00:22:08,741 --> 00:22:10,846
Before that, he owned
personal property items
344
00:22:10,881 --> 00:22:14,781
like horses, pigs, implements,
farm tools, that sort of thing,
345
00:22:14,816 --> 00:22:17,508
but he actually began
to own land about 1820.
346
00:22:19,821 --> 00:22:23,307
CAUSEY:
Tom and La Tonya's ancestors had a very different experience
347
00:22:23,342 --> 00:22:25,516
than most Africans in America.
348
00:22:26,552 --> 00:22:29,140
Not until President
Abraham Lincoln's
349
00:22:29,175 --> 00:22:32,627
Emancipation Proclamation
70 years later
350
00:22:32,661 --> 00:22:34,870
were so many slaves freed.
351
00:22:35,699 --> 00:22:38,357
What would our country
look like today
352
00:22:38,391 --> 00:22:41,187
if others had followed
in Carter's footsteps?
353
00:22:42,188 --> 00:22:43,396
But we didn't.
354
00:22:43,569 --> 00:22:46,572
Instead, we deepened our
commitment to slavery
355
00:22:46,606 --> 00:22:48,608
with even harsher laws.
356
00:22:49,126 --> 00:22:52,509
Sadly, one of the main
architects of those laws
357
00:22:52,543 --> 00:22:55,028
was my uncle, Edmund Pendleton.
358
00:22:56,996 --> 00:22:59,239
DUCKENFIELD:
If you were freed,
you would have to register
359
00:22:59,274 --> 00:23:02,173
with the county,
put down your height
360
00:23:02,208 --> 00:23:04,521
and any distinguishing features.
361
00:23:05,038 --> 00:23:09,353
This was to make sure that
you restricted what they did.
362
00:23:09,388 --> 00:23:10,699
You knew where they were.
363
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:14,565
LAWSON-JONES:
The laws were so convoluted.
364
00:23:15,048 --> 00:23:18,155
If you went into debt, you
could become a slave again.
365
00:23:18,397 --> 00:23:21,227
If someone brought
a case against you,
366
00:23:21,261 --> 00:23:22,746
you could become a slave again.
367
00:23:25,542 --> 00:23:29,684
CAUSEY:
International pressure and the
successful revolution in Haiti
368
00:23:29,718 --> 00:23:34,309
forced the U.S. Congress to ban the importation of new slaves.
369
00:23:34,827 --> 00:23:36,553
So what did Southern
slave owners do
370
00:23:36,587 --> 00:23:39,038
to maintain and grow
their profits?
371
00:23:39,590 --> 00:23:42,697
They bred more and more slaves.
372
00:23:44,008 --> 00:23:48,703
If you travel in Virginia today
-- I think it's Charles City
373
00:23:48,737 --> 00:23:51,015
which is not that far
from Richmond --
374
00:23:51,050 --> 00:23:55,503
you'll find evidences
today of Virginia
375
00:23:55,537 --> 00:23:59,161
as this great breeding colony
where you're breeding Africans
376
00:23:59,196 --> 00:24:00,853
like you're breeding cattle.
377
00:24:01,267 --> 00:24:04,166
[♪♪♪]
378
00:24:05,340 --> 00:24:08,377
CAUSEY:
The demand for slaves exploded
379
00:24:08,412 --> 00:24:11,519
because of Eli Whitney's
invention of the cotton gin.
380
00:24:12,002 --> 00:24:14,487
Cotton became the most
profitable commodity
381
00:24:14,522 --> 00:24:15,730
in the world.
382
00:24:16,696 --> 00:24:20,700
In this era, one million out
of the two million slaves
383
00:24:20,735 --> 00:24:24,773
in the U.S. were brutally
separated from their families
384
00:24:24,808 --> 00:24:29,502
and forcibly marched to the Deep South to plant and pick cotton.
385
00:24:35,059 --> 00:24:37,890
This site that blends into
the bustling city landscape
386
00:24:37,924 --> 00:24:39,201
of New Orleans
387
00:24:39,236 --> 00:24:42,515
was one of the nation's busiest slave auction blocks.
388
00:24:43,136 --> 00:24:46,312
Yet there was not even
a plaque or a marker
389
00:24:46,346 --> 00:24:49,246
that acknowledged the suffering that took place here.
390
00:24:50,143 --> 00:24:52,594
This denial bothered me deeply.
391
00:24:53,008 --> 00:24:56,046
It felt like a whitewashing
of history
392
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:58,289
but this was very familiar.
393
00:24:58,704 --> 00:25:01,672
This version of history was
peddled to me in school books
394
00:25:01,707 --> 00:25:03,674
throughout my childhood.
395
00:25:04,468 --> 00:25:07,644
I felt haunted by the spirits
of the slaves
396
00:25:07,678 --> 00:25:09,715
who had been so terrorized here.
397
00:25:09,956 --> 00:25:13,546
[♪♪♪]
398
00:25:45,233 --> 00:25:48,719
[♪♪♪]
399
00:25:53,655 --> 00:25:56,865
The frenzy for profits
produced by cotton
400
00:25:56,900 --> 00:25:59,627
and the sale of slaves
in the new states
401
00:25:59,661 --> 00:26:03,562
also increased the physical
violence against them.
402
00:26:04,252 --> 00:26:08,083
More productivity came
through extreme punishment
403
00:26:08,118 --> 00:26:11,639
with overseers even calculating how many lashes on the back
404
00:26:11,673 --> 00:26:15,988
of a slave might generate
one more pound of cotton.
405
00:26:17,127 --> 00:26:20,820
This cruelty and the forced
separation from their families
406
00:26:20,855 --> 00:26:23,823
led more slaves
to try to escape.
407
00:26:23,927 --> 00:26:27,309
[♪♪♪]
408
00:26:39,874 --> 00:26:42,773
POWELL:
The United States Supreme Court
sanctioned a law,
409
00:26:42,808 --> 00:26:44,982
The Fugitive Slave Law
that requires the country
410
00:26:45,017 --> 00:26:47,260
to hunt slaves no matter
where they are.
411
00:26:47,536 --> 00:26:49,884
There's no provision
for that in the constitution.
412
00:26:50,091 --> 00:26:52,507
So we had this
extremely broad reading
413
00:26:52,541 --> 00:26:55,752
of the rights of slave owners
which basically says,
414
00:26:55,786 --> 00:26:58,651
the state can deputize every
citizen in the United States
415
00:26:58,686 --> 00:26:59,928
to hunt down slavery
416
00:26:59,963 --> 00:27:01,516
whether you're in
a slave state or not.
417
00:27:01,689 --> 00:27:05,209
The country is going to all
this length to protect slavery.
418
00:27:05,416 --> 00:27:10,387
[♪♪♪]
419
00:27:10,421 --> 00:27:13,355
CAUSEY:
By now, I was seeing
a deeply troubling pattern
420
00:27:13,390 --> 00:27:14,840
in our history.
421
00:27:15,254 --> 00:27:19,016
White people, whether
they owned slaves are not,
422
00:27:19,051 --> 00:27:21,743
clearly had a stake
in making sure
423
00:27:21,778 --> 00:27:25,574
that the majority of blacks
were maintained as slaves.
424
00:27:25,782 --> 00:27:28,474
♪ Run, run run
425
00:27:28,508 --> 00:27:32,858
♪ You better run
[Better run, better run]
426
00:27:32,892 --> 00:27:36,447
CAUSEY: But what Sally and I discovered was that just one step
427
00:27:36,482 --> 00:27:38,657
over the border in Canada,
428
00:27:38,691 --> 00:27:40,969
they were offering
Africans from the U.S.
429
00:27:41,004 --> 00:27:44,179
the possibility of
a radically different life.
430
00:27:44,870 --> 00:27:48,563
♪ You better run
431
00:27:50,151 --> 00:27:52,636
JOHN ADAMS:
Canada was originally
a British Colony.
432
00:27:52,671 --> 00:27:55,363
So we had to abide by
the laws of England.
433
00:27:55,777 --> 00:27:58,021
Automatically, by the 1830s,
434
00:27:58,055 --> 00:28:00,851
there was no slavery allowed
in what is now Canada.
435
00:28:02,197 --> 00:28:06,063
♪ Steal away
436
00:28:07,686 --> 00:28:11,448
♪ Steal away
437
00:28:12,794 --> 00:28:16,418
♪ Steal away
438
00:28:17,178 --> 00:28:21,251
♪ To Jesus
439
00:28:22,977 --> 00:28:24,737
- Now, this is Sylvia?
- This is Sylvia.
440
00:28:24,772 --> 00:28:26,635
Okay. So she's your
great grandmother, right?
441
00:28:26,670 --> 00:28:28,292
She's my great grandmother.
442
00:28:28,327 --> 00:28:33,850
And she was the mother
of my mother's mother
443
00:28:33,884 --> 00:28:37,716
and she never talked to us
about being free.
444
00:28:37,957 --> 00:28:40,028
We just knew she was happy.
445
00:28:40,753 --> 00:28:44,274
CAUSEY:
We met up with the great
granddaughter of Sylvia Stark,
446
00:28:44,308 --> 00:28:47,587
a former slave
who lived to be 105.
447
00:28:48,519 --> 00:28:52,282
Sylvia was the youngest child
of Howard and Hannah Estes
448
00:28:52,316 --> 00:28:55,009
who were born into slavery
in Missouri.
449
00:28:55,595 --> 00:28:57,839
- And this is Howard.
- Yes.
450
00:28:57,874 --> 00:29:01,015
The patriarch of the family,
Howard Estes.
451
00:29:02,602 --> 00:29:05,053
ADAMS: The Estes and Stark
family's history
452
00:29:05,088 --> 00:29:06,468
is a rather complicated one.
453
00:29:06,503 --> 00:29:07,884
It starts in Missouri.
454
00:29:07,987 --> 00:29:11,301
Howard's master wanted
to send a herd of cattle
455
00:29:11,335 --> 00:29:13,924
over the mountains to California
during the big Gold Rush
456
00:29:13,959 --> 00:29:18,826
after 1849 and Howard was asked
to accompany the master's son
457
00:29:18,860 --> 00:29:21,414
and he could stay there
and earn some money
458
00:29:21,449 --> 00:29:22,795
and purchase his freedom
459
00:29:22,830 --> 00:29:24,383
which was going to be
a thousand dollars.
460
00:29:24,832 --> 00:29:28,318
CAUSEY: Howard Estes managed
to buy his family's freedom
461
00:29:28,352 --> 00:29:30,941
receiving in return
their freedom papers.
462
00:29:31,908 --> 00:29:35,049
These are the papers
that freed them
463
00:29:35,083 --> 00:29:37,603
and this is all written here.
464
00:29:37,637 --> 00:29:40,157
- And to have this.
- Yes. Yes.
465
00:29:40,433 --> 00:29:41,676
Wow.
466
00:29:41,883 --> 00:29:45,162
SIMS:
So these papers were written up
467
00:29:45,197 --> 00:29:48,821
so that they'd have proof
that they were freed slaves.
468
00:29:50,064 --> 00:29:56,415
It says, "Know all men by these
present that I Howard Estes
469
00:29:56,449 --> 00:30:02,317
of the County of Clay in the
State of Missouri have..."
470
00:30:05,873 --> 00:30:08,841
KAREN ALEXANDER: They arrived
in time to find some gold
471
00:30:08,876 --> 00:30:11,775
but the blacks
that were in California
472
00:30:11,810 --> 00:30:14,847
were now getting fearful
that California
473
00:30:14,882 --> 00:30:19,300
which was admitted to the
United States nine years earlier
474
00:30:19,334 --> 00:30:22,441
was now in danger
of becoming a slave state.
475
00:30:22,751 --> 00:30:24,892
So the blacks were quite afraid.
476
00:30:26,721 --> 00:30:30,242
CAUSEY: At the same time
a slave named Dred Scott
477
00:30:30,276 --> 00:30:33,762
who had been taken by his
owner to non-slave states
478
00:30:33,797 --> 00:30:36,213
claimed that he was there
for free
479
00:30:36,248 --> 00:30:38,837
and entitled to US citizenship.
480
00:30:40,045 --> 00:30:44,049
Scott sued but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against him.
481
00:30:45,188 --> 00:30:50,262
POWELL:
Chief Justice Taney said,
"No blacks free or otherwise
482
00:30:50,296 --> 00:30:52,264
could ever be a citizen
of United States."
483
00:30:52,643 --> 00:30:54,162
And it was the first time
the Supreme Court
484
00:30:54,197 --> 00:30:58,477
dealt with citizenship and
went to great length to say that
485
00:30:58,511 --> 00:31:01,273
blacks were never meant to be
part of the political community.
486
00:31:06,002 --> 00:31:09,384
ADAMS:
The situation in California
where they were ostensibly free
487
00:31:09,419 --> 00:31:10,869
was beginning to heat up.
488
00:31:11,041 --> 00:31:14,217
So the Fugitive Slave Act,
the Dred Scott decision
489
00:31:14,251 --> 00:31:17,013
and then individual decisions
in places like San Francisco
490
00:31:17,047 --> 00:31:19,394
that banned black children
from attending school
491
00:31:19,429 --> 00:31:22,328
made it apparently very, very
difficult for some of them.
492
00:31:22,432 --> 00:31:24,883
So they wrote a letter.
Can you imagine that?
493
00:31:24,917 --> 00:31:28,714
Wrote a letter
to Governor James Douglas
494
00:31:28,748 --> 00:31:31,441
and told them what
they were going through
495
00:31:31,475 --> 00:31:33,753
and that they needed
a place to live.
496
00:31:36,101 --> 00:31:39,725
CAUSEY:
The first governor of British
Columbia, James Douglas,
497
00:31:39,759 --> 00:31:41,451
was born in Africa.
498
00:31:41,969 --> 00:31:45,627
His mother was mixed race
and his father was Scottish.
499
00:31:46,145 --> 00:31:49,045
Douglas frequently
identified as black.
500
00:31:50,563 --> 00:31:53,670
He wrote him back and said,
"Bring all of them.
501
00:31:53,704 --> 00:31:55,983
If you want to come,
come to Canada."
502
00:31:56,017 --> 00:31:58,192
He said, "We have a big country
503
00:31:58,226 --> 00:32:00,297
and we're trying
to make it grow."
504
00:32:02,679 --> 00:32:07,304
CAUSEY: By 1860, Sylvia Estes
had married farmer Lewis Stark
505
00:32:07,339 --> 00:32:09,962
in California
and they had two children.
506
00:32:10,825 --> 00:32:13,483
They were among 800 free blacks
507
00:32:13,517 --> 00:32:16,624
who accepted the invitation
from Governor Douglas.
508
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:20,559
[♪♪♪]
509
00:32:23,942 --> 00:32:26,806
SIMS: He rode over here
and he saw this island,
510
00:32:26,841 --> 00:32:29,982
this beautiful island
and there was nobody on it.
511
00:32:30,155 --> 00:32:32,433
And she says,
"That's where I want to go."
512
00:32:32,743 --> 00:32:38,439
And they preempted land
in three spots on Salt Spring.
513
00:32:39,026 --> 00:32:41,407
This is the one
she loved the most
514
00:32:41,442 --> 00:32:43,789
and this is where
she made her life.
515
00:32:46,412 --> 00:32:50,382
CAUSEY:
I was inspired by Sylvia's
grit and inner strength.
516
00:32:51,590 --> 00:32:53,661
SIMS:
Granny made her own soap.
517
00:32:54,179 --> 00:32:56,560
She made her own butter
518
00:32:56,595 --> 00:32:59,425
but she had a machine
where she could cord
519
00:32:59,460 --> 00:33:01,772
and do her own weaving.
520
00:33:02,152 --> 00:33:03,947
She did all of that herself.
521
00:33:06,743 --> 00:33:09,366
ALEXANDER: When they arrived,
they were offered land.
522
00:33:09,642 --> 00:33:11,817
They were told they
could live here free.
523
00:33:11,851 --> 00:33:14,337
There was no slavery
in this part of the world.
524
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:17,374
And most of them stayed here
and farmed
525
00:33:17,409 --> 00:33:20,999
and raised their families
and had a fairly good life.
526
00:33:24,140 --> 00:33:28,006
[♪♪♪]
527
00:33:29,559 --> 00:33:31,354
ADAMS:
Many of them opened businesses
528
00:33:31,388 --> 00:33:34,495
and very quickly, many of them
became citizens
529
00:33:34,529 --> 00:33:37,774
and they voted and one quickly
became elected to city council.
530
00:33:38,602 --> 00:33:41,433
[♪♪♪]
531
00:33:42,641 --> 00:33:46,438
CAUSEY: The stories of these courageous black pioneers in Canada
532
00:33:46,472 --> 00:33:49,613
contradicted every stereotype
I was exposed to
533
00:33:49,648 --> 00:33:51,443
growing up in the South.
534
00:33:51,615 --> 00:33:56,172
A culture that insisted that blacks were lazy, unintelligent
535
00:33:56,206 --> 00:33:59,071
and incapable of
managing their own lives.
536
00:33:59,692 --> 00:34:02,488
The new black Canadians
made obvious
537
00:34:02,523 --> 00:34:05,250
just how much of a lie this was.
538
00:34:06,458 --> 00:34:08,425
♪ I got religion
539
00:34:08,667 --> 00:34:11,566
♪ Oh, I got religion
540
00:34:11,842 --> 00:34:14,500
♪ Oh, I got religion
541
00:34:15,122 --> 00:34:19,988
ALEXANDER:
This church was built by Charles
Alexander from his design
542
00:34:20,023 --> 00:34:22,681
with the farmers
of the neighborhood.
543
00:34:22,888 --> 00:34:26,650
So all farmers, no matter who
you were, what you were,
544
00:34:26,685 --> 00:34:28,963
were able to attend this church.
545
00:34:29,964 --> 00:34:31,828
ADAMS:
The integration was very real.
546
00:34:32,173 --> 00:34:34,934
But in fact,
there was discrimination,
547
00:34:34,969 --> 00:34:36,315
personal discrimination.
548
00:34:36,867 --> 00:34:39,353
Some blacks were not allowed
to go into certain theaters
549
00:34:39,387 --> 00:34:41,079
or drink in certain bars.
550
00:34:44,565 --> 00:34:47,430
CAUSEY: Just as the California Gold Rush was ending,
551
00:34:47,464 --> 00:34:50,916
a major gold vein was discovered in British Columbia.
552
00:34:51,399 --> 00:34:54,782
It brought a familiar foe
to the black community:
553
00:34:54,816 --> 00:34:56,577
U.S. Southerners.
554
00:34:57,060 --> 00:35:00,098
Were free blacks safe anywhere?
555
00:35:01,064 --> 00:35:04,205
LORNE HAMMOND:
There were whites with views
from the American South
556
00:35:04,240 --> 00:35:07,622
who came up and they were not
open to sharing the land
557
00:35:07,657 --> 00:35:10,453
or their businesses or their
theaters or their saloons
558
00:35:10,487 --> 00:35:12,938
or what have you
with the African,
559
00:35:12,972 --> 00:35:14,905
now, African-Canadian community.
560
00:35:17,736 --> 00:35:21,774
CAUSEY:
Canada had become a haven for Southern Civil War criminals
561
00:35:21,809 --> 00:35:25,192
now on the run from that
crushing American conflict
562
00:35:25,226 --> 00:35:27,711
which began in 1861.
563
00:35:28,436 --> 00:35:31,681
Hanging in the balance
were the lives of four million
564
00:35:31,715 --> 00:35:35,754
enslaved human beings in the
U.S. whose monetary value
565
00:35:35,788 --> 00:35:38,653
now exceeded that
of all manufacturing
566
00:35:38,688 --> 00:35:41,725
and commercial enterprises
combined.
567
00:35:51,356 --> 00:35:54,497
[♪♪♪]
568
00:35:56,292 --> 00:35:59,950
Seven slave states had broken
away from the U.S.
569
00:35:59,985 --> 00:36:01,849
forming the Confederacy.
570
00:36:02,194 --> 00:36:07,406
[cannon fires]
571
00:36:20,108 --> 00:36:24,216
America's Civil War was fought
for four horrific years
572
00:36:24,251 --> 00:36:26,253
to save the Union.
573
00:36:29,635 --> 00:36:32,293
When I was young, I heard
stories about how bravely
574
00:36:32,328 --> 00:36:34,192
my ancestors fought
575
00:36:34,226 --> 00:36:38,196
and how much the family lost in the war of Northern aggression.
576
00:36:39,990 --> 00:36:42,717
To win the war,
President Abraham Lincoln
577
00:36:42,752 --> 00:36:46,859
issued his Emancipation
Proclamation in 1863.
578
00:36:46,894 --> 00:36:50,691
Freeing Southern slaves so they could fight for the union.
579
00:36:51,381 --> 00:36:56,075
Only with the war's end were
Northern slaves finally freed.
580
00:37:02,530 --> 00:37:05,809
LEON LITWACK:
What happened at the moment,
black men and women are told,
581
00:37:05,844 --> 00:37:07,570
you're no longer slaves.
582
00:37:08,156 --> 00:37:10,504
You're free. You can do
whatever you want to do.
583
00:37:11,056 --> 00:37:13,748
It's a great moment.
Great moment in our history.
584
00:37:20,168 --> 00:37:22,861
This is called sometimes
The Day of Jubilee.
585
00:37:23,310 --> 00:37:29,454
Well, there's no real jubilee
because everybody was uncertain.
586
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:34,459
Blacks were uncertain and
they did say, how free is free?
587
00:37:35,322 --> 00:37:37,220
How free is free?
588
00:37:44,434 --> 00:37:49,025
ALLEN:
The idea that these four million
people were set free
589
00:37:49,059 --> 00:37:52,442
without any kind of reparation.
590
00:37:52,477 --> 00:37:55,134
They had worked,
their ancestors had worked.
591
00:37:55,169 --> 00:37:58,690
They helped to build all of the
institutions that we think about
592
00:37:58,724 --> 00:38:02,694
in the South and in the North
before the Revolution
593
00:38:02,728 --> 00:38:04,523
and they received nothing.
594
00:38:19,055 --> 00:38:21,471
CAUSEY: Northern General,
William Sherman
595
00:38:21,506 --> 00:38:24,923
understood the desperate
plight of the freed slaves.
596
00:38:25,337 --> 00:38:29,859
He gave 40,000 of them
40 acres of land and a mule.
597
00:38:30,515 --> 00:38:33,069
But even today,
many people don't know
598
00:38:33,103 --> 00:38:36,728
that President Andrew Johnson,
a former slave holder
599
00:38:36,762 --> 00:38:40,041
who had succeeded the
assassinated Abraham Lincoln
600
00:38:40,076 --> 00:38:41,871
quickly revoked that.
601
00:38:42,078 --> 00:38:44,425
Evicting blacks from their land.
602
00:38:55,816 --> 00:38:58,853
White settlers were getting
cheap land in the West
603
00:38:58,888 --> 00:39:00,752
under the Homestead Act.
604
00:39:00,786 --> 00:39:04,721
Understandably, freed blacks
wanted land in the South
605
00:39:04,756 --> 00:39:07,862
where most of them
still lived but instead,
606
00:39:07,897 --> 00:39:10,831
the federal government
abandoned the freed slaves
607
00:39:10,865 --> 00:39:14,282
and sold confiscated Southern
land to Northern whites
608
00:39:14,317 --> 00:39:15,905
and the railroads.
609
00:39:17,596 --> 00:39:20,875
ALLEN:
There is a fear and I think
rightly so that Southerners
610
00:39:20,910 --> 00:39:26,916
were not going to necessarily
treat slaves as equal citizens
611
00:39:26,950 --> 00:39:30,022
regardless of the laws
that were passed.
612
00:39:30,057 --> 00:39:32,439
They were going to need
some support behind that.
613
00:39:32,853 --> 00:39:34,993
[♪♪♪]
614
00:39:35,027 --> 00:39:38,479
CAUSEY:
Pressured by abolitionists,
the federal government amended
615
00:39:38,514 --> 00:39:42,725
the Constitution by passing the Reconstruction Amendments
616
00:39:42,759 --> 00:39:45,037
which officially ended slavery
617
00:39:45,072 --> 00:39:47,937
and gave U.S. citizenship
to ex-slaves.
618
00:39:48,455 --> 00:39:51,319
The amendments were supposed to protect freed slaves against
619
00:39:51,354 --> 00:39:53,391
future discrimination.
620
00:39:54,461 --> 00:39:56,911
POWELL:
The 13th, 14th and 15th
Amendment was designed to try
621
00:39:56,946 --> 00:40:00,812
to interrupt the institution
of slavery which requires
622
00:40:00,846 --> 00:40:03,884
a re-articulation
of the entire country
623
00:40:03,918 --> 00:40:05,748
and the entire
country identity.
624
00:40:05,782 --> 00:40:08,302
Not just for the South
but for the entire country.
625
00:40:08,751 --> 00:40:11,719
[♪♪♪]
626
00:40:12,824 --> 00:40:14,895
What happened
in the Reconstruction,
627
00:40:14,929 --> 00:40:17,829
more important
than anything else,
628
00:40:17,863 --> 00:40:22,350
that black men, women
to some extent
629
00:40:22,385 --> 00:40:26,078
but black men learned to use
his political power.
630
00:40:27,217 --> 00:40:29,944
[♪♪♪]
631
00:40:30,289 --> 00:40:33,741
CAUSEY: By 1870,
black males could now vote
632
00:40:33,776 --> 00:40:36,882
and vote they did
in record numbers.
633
00:40:37,158 --> 00:40:40,092
Three blacks were even
elected to the U.S. Senate.
634
00:40:40,507 --> 00:40:46,720
Not until 1967 was another black elected as a U.S. Senator.
635
00:40:47,997 --> 00:40:52,553
[♪♪♪]
636
00:40:56,074 --> 00:40:59,836
Blacks organized themselves
into a political force
637
00:40:59,871 --> 00:41:02,011
through meetings
at their churches.
638
00:41:02,529 --> 00:41:06,671
Black churches like the African Methodist Episcopal Church
639
00:41:06,705 --> 00:41:09,708
would continue the fight
for equal rights.
640
00:41:10,985 --> 00:41:14,541
LITWACK: Then to succeed
in this aspiration,
641
00:41:14,575 --> 00:41:18,268
what the whites feared more
than anything else that
642
00:41:18,303 --> 00:41:24,930
Reconstruction might succeed in
reordering Southern society.
643
00:41:26,138 --> 00:41:31,799
Whites had an intense hatred for
blacks who wanted to get ahead.
644
00:41:33,007 --> 00:41:36,666
A successful black
was a dangerous black.
645
00:41:37,909 --> 00:41:41,982
An incompetent and illiterate
black posed no threat.
646
00:41:42,223 --> 00:41:46,952
His labor was valuable but the
black who got out of his place,
647
00:41:46,987 --> 00:41:49,472
who aspired to anything above
the place to which
648
00:41:49,507 --> 00:41:52,199
he had been assigned,
that is the kind of black
649
00:41:52,233 --> 00:41:54,512
that whites could not tolerate.
650
00:41:55,271 --> 00:41:57,860
[♪♪♪]
651
00:42:06,834 --> 00:42:09,561
POWELL:
So the country started in that
road and then they reneged.
652
00:42:09,596 --> 00:42:13,358
And they decided to basically
to create another expression
653
00:42:13,392 --> 00:42:15,118
of racial dominance.
654
00:42:17,914 --> 00:42:19,916
ALLEN: The Southerners
wanted to control
655
00:42:19,951 --> 00:42:22,540
these four million people
that have been freed.
656
00:42:22,574 --> 00:42:25,404
They still needed them
to do the work.
657
00:42:26,095 --> 00:42:27,890
They also needed them
to understand
658
00:42:27,924 --> 00:42:29,443
and to know their place
659
00:42:29,477 --> 00:42:31,583
and this was something
that even Northerners
660
00:42:31,618 --> 00:42:34,552
would come to understand
and agree with
661
00:42:34,586 --> 00:42:39,142
that the states were really free
to do whatever they wanted to do
662
00:42:39,177 --> 00:42:42,387
in terms of controlling
this inferior people
663
00:42:42,421 --> 00:42:44,458
as they continued to see them.
664
00:42:48,151 --> 00:42:49,601
CAUSEY:
Without federal enforcement
665
00:42:49,636 --> 00:42:52,328
of the new civil rights
legislation,
666
00:42:52,362 --> 00:42:54,951
the states enacted
the Black Codes.
667
00:42:55,365 --> 00:42:59,059
These punitive laws restricted
the movement of blacks,
668
00:42:59,093 --> 00:43:01,993
rigged the labor economy
against them
669
00:43:02,027 --> 00:43:05,099
and doomed them
to low wages and debt.
670
00:43:05,824 --> 00:43:09,483
The laws also open the door
to the widespread use
671
00:43:09,517 --> 00:43:13,694
of convict leasing which was
just another form of slavery.
672
00:43:14,730 --> 00:43:19,769
So if you broke these laws, then
you could be in prison for it.
673
00:43:19,804 --> 00:43:23,393
And so then that starts the
cycle of people going to prison
674
00:43:23,428 --> 00:43:27,605
for really trivial reasons but
getting caught up in the system
675
00:43:27,639 --> 00:43:32,437
because then if a white
landholder or businessperson
676
00:43:32,471 --> 00:43:37,235
paid their fine, then they
had to work off that fine.
677
00:43:37,269 --> 00:43:41,066
And so you could be years,
maybe for the rest of your life
678
00:43:41,101 --> 00:43:44,104
in these situations
because these people
679
00:43:44,138 --> 00:43:47,659
were not an investment like
they had been during slavery
680
00:43:47,694 --> 00:43:51,145
so you can work them to death,
get them replaced and move on.
681
00:43:54,355 --> 00:43:59,429
CAUSEY: The Plessy v. Ferguson
Supreme Court decision in 1896
682
00:43:59,464 --> 00:44:01,811
created separate but equal,
683
00:44:01,846 --> 00:44:04,918
the legal separation
between black and white.
684
00:44:05,919 --> 00:44:09,025
It's always been hard for me to believe that these so-called
685
00:44:09,060 --> 00:44:12,166
Jim Crow Laws
that blatantly discriminated
686
00:44:12,201 --> 00:44:17,275
against African-Americans
remained in place until 1964.
687
00:44:17,827 --> 00:44:22,418
Jim Crow created America's
own system of apartheid.
688
00:44:23,488 --> 00:44:26,594
ALLEN: Jim Crow was really
born in the South.
689
00:44:26,698 --> 00:44:29,805
Although it would go north
certainly
690
00:44:29,839 --> 00:44:31,703
but in the South,
it would become legal.
691
00:44:31,738 --> 00:44:34,602
It would become part
of state laws, local laws.
692
00:44:34,741 --> 00:44:40,056
Everything from separate Bibles
for people to swear on in court.
693
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:41,609
I interviewed a lady once.
694
00:44:41,644 --> 00:44:43,715
She told me she worked
in a shirt factory
695
00:44:43,750 --> 00:44:45,613
and they had separate
coat hooks.
696
00:44:45,648 --> 00:44:47,408
They had separate bathrooms.
697
00:44:47,443 --> 00:44:49,963
They had separate cemeteries.
698
00:44:49,997 --> 00:44:52,724
Everything that you can imagine.
699
00:44:53,380 --> 00:44:56,728
Intermarrying was illegal to do
700
00:44:56,763 --> 00:44:59,110
and these were codified
in the South.
701
00:44:59,317 --> 00:45:02,147
In the North, they became
kind of part of the custom
702
00:45:02,182 --> 00:45:04,218
but not necessarily
part of the law.
703
00:45:04,805 --> 00:45:09,016
[♪♪♪]
704
00:45:12,157 --> 00:45:15,851
HORNE: I think it's fair
to say that Dixie,
705
00:45:15,885 --> 00:45:18,094
the so-called White South
706
00:45:18,232 --> 00:45:21,753
has left a very deep imprint
on the political culture
707
00:45:21,788 --> 00:45:23,168
of the United States.
708
00:45:23,203 --> 00:45:25,723
It was defeated militarily
doing the Civil War
709
00:45:25,757 --> 00:45:28,208
but not defeated politically
710
00:45:28,242 --> 00:45:33,316
because its white supremacist
ideas were not defeated
711
00:45:33,351 --> 00:45:37,251
and in fact, it seems as if
the part of the reconciliation
712
00:45:37,286 --> 00:45:40,496
between Dixie
and the rest of the country
713
00:45:40,530 --> 00:45:43,326
is to give Dixie a pass.
714
00:45:43,602 --> 00:45:46,882
[♪♪♪]
715
00:45:47,641 --> 00:45:50,782
CAUSEY: The South had lost
nearly everything in the war
716
00:45:50,817 --> 00:45:53,164
but we refused to surrender.
717
00:45:53,958 --> 00:45:57,375
Instead, we united around
a strange myth
718
00:45:57,409 --> 00:45:59,757
known as The Lost Cause.
719
00:46:00,585 --> 00:46:02,621
I grew up surrounded by it.
720
00:46:02,932 --> 00:46:06,867
It was always the Yankees or the War of Northern Aggression.
721
00:46:07,212 --> 00:46:10,008
Life before the war
was romanticized
722
00:46:10,043 --> 00:46:14,047
as one of content slaves
and idyllic plantation life.
723
00:46:14,426 --> 00:46:17,153
Monuments to Confederate
battlefields and generals
724
00:46:17,188 --> 00:46:18,776
were everywhere.
725
00:46:19,017 --> 00:46:24,643
We were a separate people who are superior, distinct and noble
726
00:46:24,678 --> 00:46:29,165
but I always felt that beneath this mask of Southern gentility
727
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:31,098
and outward politeness
728
00:46:31,133 --> 00:46:34,826
was a culture that was
deeply flawed at its core.
729
00:46:38,554 --> 00:46:40,798
♪ To Southern boys
730
00:46:43,386 --> 00:46:46,562
♪ Who are here today
731
00:46:48,184 --> 00:46:52,188
♪ Our little Southern town
732
00:46:53,086 --> 00:46:57,435
♪ Has blood on the way
733
00:46:59,230 --> 00:47:01,577
♪ It's a way of life
734
00:47:04,373 --> 00:47:07,272
♪ And a lie
735
00:47:07,307 --> 00:47:10,137
If you investigated these
lynchings in a great extent
736
00:47:10,172 --> 00:47:12,830
which I have,
737
00:47:12,864 --> 00:47:15,867
you can't believe that it really
happened in your country,
738
00:47:15,902 --> 00:47:17,317
in this country.
739
00:47:18,042 --> 00:47:20,976
And the country still
stands in great denial.
740
00:47:23,219 --> 00:47:26,188
CAUSEY: More lynchings were
recorded in the United States
741
00:47:26,222 --> 00:47:31,814
from 1890 to the 1920s than at
any other time in our history.
742
00:47:32,401 --> 00:47:36,267
These tactics were used
with terrifying effect
743
00:47:36,301 --> 00:47:39,028
particularly at night
by the notorious
744
00:47:39,063 --> 00:47:42,307
white supremacist group,
the Ku Klux Klan.
745
00:47:42,998 --> 00:47:46,656
The Klan's primary goal
was to keep African-Americans
746
00:47:46,691 --> 00:47:50,557
in their place by any
means necessary.
747
00:47:50,971 --> 00:47:55,320
As a child, the images of these white robed terrorists
748
00:47:55,355 --> 00:47:56,908
really frightened me
749
00:47:56,943 --> 00:47:59,462
just knowing that
they were among us.
750
00:48:01,568 --> 00:48:05,641
Hollywood's first feature film,Birth of a Nation
751
00:48:05,675 --> 00:48:10,646
which romanticized the Ku Klux
Klan was released in 1915.
752
00:48:11,095 --> 00:48:14,650
[♪♪♪]
753
00:48:21,968 --> 00:48:25,937
To protest the film, large
numbers of African-Americans
754
00:48:25,972 --> 00:48:29,561
assembled publicly for the
first time in the 20th century
755
00:48:29,596 --> 00:48:31,943
in Boston and other places.
756
00:48:41,090 --> 00:48:44,749
It was the Southern Klan's
violence and a labor shortage
757
00:48:44,783 --> 00:48:50,065
after World War I that drove
1.6 million African-Americans
758
00:48:50,099 --> 00:48:53,206
from the South
to the North and Midwest.
759
00:48:53,827 --> 00:48:57,451
There, they worked in
the steel mills, railroads,
760
00:48:57,486 --> 00:49:01,352
meatpacking plants
and automobile industry
761
00:49:01,386 --> 00:49:05,701
but poll taxes, literacy tests
and the Klan's intimidation
762
00:49:05,735 --> 00:49:08,911
in the North kept blacks
from voting there.
763
00:49:10,602 --> 00:49:13,088
LITWACK:
You expect nothing from
the federal government.
764
00:49:13,536 --> 00:49:18,921
There are no "good presidents"
during this entire period.
765
00:49:20,164 --> 00:49:23,374
Probably the worst of them
all is Woodrow Wilson
766
00:49:23,408 --> 00:49:27,550
when the nation's capital
assumes the mantle of Jim Crow.
767
00:49:28,793 --> 00:49:33,280
And it's because Wilson,
a deep Virginian
768
00:49:33,315 --> 00:49:37,319
can't stand to see successful
blacks around him.
769
00:49:38,872 --> 00:49:41,288
He makes a point
of demoting them.
770
00:49:41,633 --> 00:49:45,292
Sending them from the offices
to the kitchens
771
00:49:45,327 --> 00:49:47,156
and takes great pride in this.
772
00:49:48,847 --> 00:49:51,022
POWELL: The South is neither
Democrat nor Republican.
773
00:49:51,057 --> 00:49:54,336
The South has always been
a party organized
774
00:49:54,370 --> 00:49:57,373
around racial domination
and white supremacy
775
00:49:57,856 --> 00:49:59,997
and it was one of the things
that made the South so strong
776
00:50:00,031 --> 00:50:02,275
because they had
a single-party state.
777
00:50:03,552 --> 00:50:06,555
ALLEN: You also had
Northern politicians
778
00:50:06,589 --> 00:50:09,040
who pandered to the South
because the South,
779
00:50:09,075 --> 00:50:12,250
as they called it, the Solid
South was such a voting bloc.
780
00:50:12,354 --> 00:50:15,529
If you were a Northern
politician and even if you had
781
00:50:15,564 --> 00:50:20,258
ideas of fairness,
that's not even say equality
782
00:50:20,293 --> 00:50:24,607
but just fairness and that
black people were human beings
783
00:50:24,642 --> 00:50:27,162
but at the same time,
you wanted to win the South
784
00:50:27,196 --> 00:50:30,337
or you needed to win
the South to be elected,
785
00:50:30,372 --> 00:50:33,858
you had to step lightly around
the Southerners.
786
00:50:37,137 --> 00:50:41,038
CAUSEY: The South put this restored national power to work
787
00:50:41,072 --> 00:50:45,283
maintaining the nation's racial
hierarchy with its veto power.
788
00:50:47,113 --> 00:50:50,081
Southern politicians
tarnished the creation
789
00:50:50,116 --> 00:50:53,222
of President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt's New Deal.
790
00:50:54,534 --> 00:50:58,227
Roosevelt himself is
a very good example of this,
791
00:50:58,262 --> 00:51:00,747
that he has to make
certain compromises.
792
00:51:01,196 --> 00:51:04,371
He has to tell Walter White
of the NAACP, "I'm sorry.
793
00:51:04,406 --> 00:51:08,513
I can't sign this
anti-lynching bill."
794
00:51:09,135 --> 00:51:11,792
The bill is to make lynching
a federal crime.
795
00:51:12,828 --> 00:51:14,588
That would be a big step.
796
00:51:15,486 --> 00:51:17,902
And the opposition
to that is so intense.
797
00:51:18,005 --> 00:51:20,318
So Roosevelt himself says,
798
00:51:20,353 --> 00:51:23,218
"Look, if I do this
then forget about the New Deal."
799
00:51:31,398 --> 00:51:34,332
CAUSEY: Roosevelt's New Deal
created relief programs
800
00:51:34,367 --> 00:51:38,233
to put people back to work
during the Great Depression
801
00:51:38,267 --> 00:51:40,649
but Southern politicians
made sure
802
00:51:40,683 --> 00:51:43,617
the new federal job
benefits programs --
803
00:51:43,652 --> 00:51:46,344
social security,
the minimum wage,
804
00:51:46,379 --> 00:51:49,382
unemployment insurance
and union organizing --
805
00:51:49,416 --> 00:51:54,387
did not apply to the two primary black vocations of the era,
806
00:51:54,421 --> 00:51:57,114
agricultural
and domestic service.
807
00:51:58,184 --> 00:52:00,945
[♪♪♪]
808
00:52:02,740 --> 00:52:07,054
The jackpot that followed the American victory in World War II
809
00:52:07,089 --> 00:52:11,404
which gave birth to the American
dream, good housing, education
810
00:52:11,438 --> 00:52:16,167
and employment was off-limits
to most African-Americans.
811
00:52:16,995 --> 00:52:21,207
Nowhere was systemic racism
more on display
812
00:52:21,241 --> 00:52:23,623
than in our national
housing policy,
813
00:52:23,657 --> 00:52:26,177
also created by the New Deal.
814
00:52:28,628 --> 00:52:31,044
RICHARD ROTHSTEIN:
It was the government
leading the way in creating
815
00:52:31,078 --> 00:52:33,702
a segregated landscape
in every metropolitan area
816
00:52:33,736 --> 00:52:35,221
in this country.
817
00:52:35,393 --> 00:52:38,534
You had many neighborhoods
with European immigrants,
818
00:52:38,569 --> 00:52:42,676
African-Americans, whites
who came from rural areas
819
00:52:42,711 --> 00:52:45,645
to work in factories
in the same neighborhood
820
00:52:45,679 --> 00:52:48,199
but in fact, what the Public
Works Administration did
821
00:52:48,234 --> 00:52:50,926
with its housing program
was create segregation
822
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:52,859
when none had existed before.
823
00:52:52,997 --> 00:52:54,999
They built public housing
in those neighborhoods,
824
00:52:55,033 --> 00:52:56,759
demolishing the integrated
neighborhood
825
00:52:56,794 --> 00:52:58,830
to create land for
the public housing
826
00:52:58,865 --> 00:53:01,143
and built segregated
public housing instead.
827
00:53:03,766 --> 00:53:07,253
Returning black World War II
veterans were forced to live
828
00:53:07,287 --> 00:53:09,186
in the segregated housing
829
00:53:09,220 --> 00:53:12,050
because Dixiecrats
vetoed an amendment
830
00:53:12,085 --> 00:53:16,986
in the 1949 Housing Act that
would have reintegrated housing.
831
00:53:17,780 --> 00:53:20,438
[♪♪♪]
832
00:53:24,718 --> 00:53:28,274
LITWACK: This is crazy.
We are fighting a war
833
00:53:28,308 --> 00:53:31,415
supposedly to make this world
safe for democracy.
834
00:53:32,450 --> 00:53:36,109
We're fighting a war
in which the enemy
835
00:53:36,143 --> 00:53:41,494
is a racist Nazi Germany
that's exterminating Jews
836
00:53:41,528 --> 00:53:43,910
and we're being treated
as second-class citizens
837
00:53:43,944 --> 00:53:45,567
here in the United States.
838
00:53:45,808 --> 00:53:47,500
It makes no sense.
839
00:53:51,849 --> 00:53:55,404
CAUSEY:
Even historically oppressed
European ethnic groups
840
00:53:55,439 --> 00:53:58,890
like Italians, Jews
and Irish Americans
841
00:53:58,925 --> 00:54:01,962
were allowed to buy into
the new suburban housing
842
00:54:01,997 --> 00:54:05,069
built for returning
white war veterans.
843
00:54:05,552 --> 00:54:08,521
ROTHSTEIN:
Throughout the country,
mass production builders
844
00:54:08,555 --> 00:54:11,834
got bank loans guaranteed by the
Federal Housing Administration
845
00:54:11,869 --> 00:54:15,631
on condition that no homes
be sold to blacks.
846
00:54:15,735 --> 00:54:18,945
Perhaps the best example
is Levittown in New York.
847
00:54:19,325 --> 00:54:22,431
In Levittown, the builder,
Levitt Company
848
00:54:22,466 --> 00:54:26,918
built 17,000 homes in Nassau
County, east of New York City.
849
00:54:27,402 --> 00:54:30,059
Black veterans were not
permitted to live there.
850
00:54:30,163 --> 00:54:31,682
White veterans were.
851
00:54:35,030 --> 00:54:37,584
CAUSEY:
Good paying industry jobs
followed whites
852
00:54:37,619 --> 00:54:39,172
to the new suburbs.
853
00:54:39,621 --> 00:54:43,107
The white families like mine
who owned their homes
854
00:54:43,141 --> 00:54:45,730
gained several hundred thousand dollars' worth of equity
855
00:54:45,765 --> 00:54:47,249
over decades.
856
00:54:47,422 --> 00:54:50,045
The white middle class was born.
857
00:54:51,115 --> 00:54:54,808
The Federal Housing Authority
made it illegal for lenders
858
00:54:54,843 --> 00:54:57,811
to loan money to blacks
who wanted to buy houses
859
00:54:57,846 --> 00:54:59,503
in white neighborhoods.
860
00:55:00,504 --> 00:55:04,301
Redlining by banks denied
mortgages to black people
861
00:55:04,335 --> 00:55:06,924
even in their own communities.
862
00:55:09,271 --> 00:55:13,171
ALLEN:
If you have a family member
who can pass on to you
863
00:55:13,206 --> 00:55:14,552
a certain amount of money,
864
00:55:14,587 --> 00:55:16,658
then you can start off
buying a home
865
00:55:16,692 --> 00:55:20,178
as opposed to renting
or going to college
866
00:55:20,213 --> 00:55:23,216
as opposed to not
going to college.
867
00:55:23,872 --> 00:55:28,394
So that ability to pass on
wealth quite often is stymied
868
00:55:28,428 --> 00:55:31,431
in the black community
because it hasn't been built
869
00:55:31,466 --> 00:55:34,538
and I think a lot of whites
don't understand
870
00:55:34,572 --> 00:55:39,301
that a lot of blacks weren't
able to make wealth
871
00:55:39,336 --> 00:55:40,785
that they could pass down.
872
00:55:40,923 --> 00:55:44,030
Everyone is starting over
from day one.
873
00:55:44,479 --> 00:55:48,172
[♪♪♪]
874
00:55:55,973 --> 00:56:00,771
CAUSEY:
About this time, Sally and I were born into a land of plenty
875
00:56:00,805 --> 00:56:04,464
and privilege where the line
between black and white
876
00:56:04,499 --> 00:56:06,121
was very clear.
877
00:56:06,984 --> 00:56:09,814
Slavery has cast a long shadow
878
00:56:09,849 --> 00:56:12,714
in Sally's hometown
of Meridian, Mississippi.
879
00:56:13,266 --> 00:56:17,132
Being here prompts memories
of her beloved housekeeper
880
00:56:17,166 --> 00:56:19,272
and friend, Anneice.
881
00:56:20,342 --> 00:56:22,965
SALLY: And I remember going to
the soda fountain and
882
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:25,243
then I would sit at
the soda fountain
883
00:56:25,278 --> 00:56:26,969
and Anneice would be
standing behind me
884
00:56:27,004 --> 00:56:30,007
and I'd go, "Why aren't you
sitting with me?"
885
00:56:30,041 --> 00:56:32,872
And she said, "It's okay, honey.
I'll just stay back here."
886
00:56:33,769 --> 00:56:36,979
She had to go into the
bathroom that said coloreds,
887
00:56:37,014 --> 00:56:38,740
sit at the back of the bus,
888
00:56:38,774 --> 00:56:41,225
go to the backdoors
of restaurants.
889
00:56:41,432 --> 00:56:44,090
It made no sense to me
890
00:56:44,124 --> 00:56:49,095
that here was the most
wonderful woman in my life
891
00:56:49,129 --> 00:56:51,822
and she was
being mistreated.
892
00:56:52,478 --> 00:56:54,341
I never understood that.
893
00:56:55,170 --> 00:56:57,241
She took care of us.
894
00:56:57,344 --> 00:56:59,174
She did the laundry.
895
00:56:59,208 --> 00:57:01,901
She cleaned the house
and she cooked.
896
00:57:02,108 --> 00:57:06,837
She did everything from sunup
to sundown five days a week
897
00:57:06,871 --> 00:57:10,150
and she left her six children
at home,
898
00:57:10,185 --> 00:57:12,532
had to make arrangements
for them.
899
00:57:13,050 --> 00:57:14,810
CAUSEY:
I don't know how she did it.
900
00:57:16,294 --> 00:57:19,436
This was our cloistered world
901
00:57:19,470 --> 00:57:22,646
but all around us,
big changes were happening.
902
00:57:23,405 --> 00:57:27,236
Not far from Sally's home,
three civil rights workers
903
00:57:27,271 --> 00:57:32,000
were savagely murdered
in 1964 by the Ku Klux Klan.
904
00:57:33,001 --> 00:57:37,039
Meridian became a flashpoint
for the Civil Rights struggle.
905
00:57:40,249 --> 00:57:42,459
MARTIN LUTHER KING:
We are determined to be free.
906
00:57:43,425 --> 00:57:45,634
We've gone too far to turn back.
907
00:57:46,497 --> 00:57:49,949
Let us be calm.
We are together.
908
00:57:49,983 --> 00:57:54,056
We are not afraid
and we shall overcome.
909
00:57:54,298 --> 00:57:56,680
NEWS ANCHOR: This girl here
was the first negro
910
00:57:56,714 --> 00:57:58,578
apparently of high school age
911
00:57:58,613 --> 00:58:00,166
to show up
at Central High School
912
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:02,686
the day that the federal court
ordered it integrated.
913
00:58:02,996 --> 00:58:06,310
These changes are coming
faster than I expected.
914
00:58:06,759 --> 00:58:10,763
It's difficult for me. It's
difficult for all Southerners.
915
00:58:10,797 --> 00:58:13,835
And Supreme Court
or no Supreme Court,
916
00:58:13,869 --> 00:58:17,424
we are going to maintain
segregated schools
917
00:58:17,459 --> 00:58:18,391
down in Dixie.
918
00:58:22,533 --> 00:58:25,502
ALLEN:
There was an understanding that
Southerners were not going
919
00:58:25,536 --> 00:58:29,126
to easily give up their control,
their power,
920
00:58:29,160 --> 00:58:32,854
this idea of ending the
inequality between the races.
921
00:58:33,337 --> 00:58:37,168
[spirited singing]
922
00:58:43,727 --> 00:58:48,041
[spirited singing]
923
00:59:05,334 --> 00:59:06,991
ALLEN: There was always
this understanding
924
00:59:07,026 --> 00:59:10,339
that there was going to need
to be this federal intervention
925
00:59:10,374 --> 00:59:13,170
on the level
of a Civil Rights Act,
926
00:59:13,204 --> 00:59:16,207
the Civil Rights Act of 1964
in this case.
927
00:59:18,693 --> 00:59:21,592
LITWACK:
Lyndon Johnson said, when the
Civil Rights bill had passed,
928
00:59:21,627 --> 00:59:25,423
he said, "I wanted this.
I supported it.
929
00:59:26,632 --> 00:59:30,428
But I'm telling you, I think we
probably lost the South."
930
00:59:31,533 --> 00:59:33,777
But Johnson thought
it was worth it.
931
00:59:34,709 --> 00:59:36,711
[fast paced chanting]
932
00:59:36,745 --> 00:59:42,579
JOHNSON: It's not just Negroes
but really, it's all of us
933
00:59:42,613 --> 00:59:46,859
who must overcome
the crippling legacy
934
00:59:46,893 --> 00:59:51,173
of bigotry and injustice
935
00:59:51,208 --> 00:59:54,038
and we shall overcome.
936
00:59:54,176 --> 00:59:56,558
[applause]
937
00:59:57,697 --> 01:00:01,390
CAUSEY: The legal discrimination
against African-Americans
938
01:00:01,425 --> 01:00:07,086
that began in the 1600s
would officially end in 1964
939
01:00:07,120 --> 01:00:09,744
with the enactment
of the Civil Rights Act.
940
01:00:11,746 --> 01:00:15,094
ALLEN: It finally gave some
teeth to the 14th Amendment.
941
01:00:16,578 --> 01:00:20,720
Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act
of '64 was very, very important
942
01:00:20,755 --> 01:00:25,414
because it said that if you were
receiving federal monies,
943
01:00:25,449 --> 01:00:31,144
then you could not discriminate
based on race, gender, religion.
944
01:00:37,703 --> 01:00:40,326
ROTHSTEIN:
The Civil Rights Movement
began to push back against
945
01:00:40,360 --> 01:00:41,983
some of these policies.
946
01:00:42,017 --> 01:00:46,263
Finally in 1968,
a Fair Housing Act was passed
947
01:00:46,297 --> 01:00:48,783
which said that you couldn't
discriminate
948
01:00:48,817 --> 01:00:52,131
in the sale or rental of most
housing in the country.
949
01:00:52,234 --> 01:00:55,755
So for example, Levittown could
no longer bar African-Americans
950
01:00:55,790 --> 01:00:57,032
from moving in.
951
01:01:02,762 --> 01:01:05,938
LOPEZ:
The Civil Rights Movement
succeeds in making
952
01:01:05,972 --> 01:01:11,288
the expressed language of racism
unacceptable publicly.
953
01:01:11,668 --> 01:01:15,395
It's unacceptable
to say publicly,
954
01:01:15,430 --> 01:01:17,501
"I stand for the white man.
955
01:01:17,535 --> 01:01:19,606
I believe in white supremacy."
956
01:01:19,641 --> 01:01:21,505
Now, there are people
saying that
957
01:01:21,539 --> 01:01:24,508
but they are increasingly on
the fringe of American society,
958
01:01:24,542 --> 01:01:27,994
the Klan members,
the sort of redneck racists.
959
01:01:29,927 --> 01:01:33,068
CAUSEY: All across the country,
not just in the South,
960
01:01:33,103 --> 01:01:37,590
expressions of open racism
instead went underground
961
01:01:37,624 --> 01:01:41,836
in the form of coded language
or secret political messaging
962
01:01:41,870 --> 01:01:44,701
meant to appeal
to segregationists.
963
01:01:45,391 --> 01:01:48,497
I shall help make it possible
for you and your families
964
01:01:48,532 --> 01:01:51,259
to walk the streets
of our cities in safety.
965
01:01:53,364 --> 01:01:54,745
NIXON: I'm against busing.
966
01:01:54,780 --> 01:01:57,230
I do not believe
that it serves education
967
01:01:57,265 --> 01:01:59,750
to pick up children that are two or three yearsbehind
968
01:01:59,785 --> 01:02:01,545
children in another
school district
969
01:02:01,579 --> 01:02:04,410
and haul them for a half hour across town to another district.
970
01:02:06,999 --> 01:02:10,485
CAUSEY: After a short stint in
a public elementary school,
971
01:02:10,519 --> 01:02:15,007
I began attending one of the many white segregated academies
972
01:02:15,041 --> 01:02:19,666
that were created in the
1960s after desegregation.
973
01:02:20,081 --> 01:02:23,670
Race relations in the South
were stuck in time.
974
01:02:24,361 --> 01:02:27,433
All around me, there was
resistance to the changes
975
01:02:27,467 --> 01:02:29,746
brought by the Civil Rights Act.
976
01:02:39,169 --> 01:02:43,242
White privilege was finding
a way to maintain itself.
977
01:02:43,587 --> 01:02:47,177
The national pushback against
the Civil Rights Movement
978
01:02:47,211 --> 01:02:51,043
and the laws it helped enact
began right away.
979
01:02:51,526 --> 01:02:53,908
This resistant
eerily mirrored
980
01:02:53,942 --> 01:02:56,048
what happened
after Reconstruction.
981
01:02:56,807 --> 01:03:01,087
Political assassinations and the overturning of policies and laws
982
01:03:01,122 --> 01:03:05,367
gradually destroyed the gains
made by African-Americans.
983
01:03:06,713 --> 01:03:08,715
From the beginning
of our administration,
984
01:03:08,750 --> 01:03:11,857
we've taken strong steps to do
something about this horror.
985
01:03:20,900 --> 01:03:24,697
WOMAN: They are often the kinds of kids that are called superpredators.
986
01:03:32,567 --> 01:03:36,502
[♪♪♪]
987
01:03:50,861 --> 01:03:54,140
WOMAN: I think that Mississippi
has a long way to go.
988
01:03:55,107 --> 01:03:57,523
There's still such segregation.
989
01:03:58,110 --> 01:04:02,286
It should have changed
by leaps and bounds
990
01:04:02,321 --> 01:04:05,324
and maybe it has by a skip.
991
01:04:06,083 --> 01:04:09,052
[♪♪♪]
992
01:04:11,157 --> 01:04:14,264
CAUSEY: Back here in Meridian, we found an incident that took place
993
01:04:14,298 --> 01:04:18,682
in 2003 that struck us
as an enduring example
994
01:04:18,716 --> 01:04:22,962
of the terrible consequences of not confronting racism directly.
995
01:04:28,036 --> 01:04:30,556
NEWS ANCHOR: The funerals for three Lockheed employee shot to death
996
01:04:30,590 --> 01:04:32,523
earlier this week
were held today
997
01:04:32,558 --> 01:04:34,940
in both Mississippi and Alabama.
998
01:04:34,974 --> 01:04:38,909
Thomas Willis, the father of
three, a Vietnam War vet
999
01:04:38,944 --> 01:04:40,393
who was honored with
the Purple Heart...
1000
01:04:40,428 --> 01:04:43,224
CAUSEY: I was immediately
drawn to Thomas Willis.
1001
01:04:43,810 --> 01:04:47,055
To me, his life
seemed to personify
1002
01:04:47,090 --> 01:04:49,782
the progress that has been made by African-Americans
1003
01:04:49,816 --> 01:04:53,337
in the U.S. since the passage
of the Civil Rights Act.
1004
01:04:53,372 --> 01:04:58,032
[indistinct conversation]
1005
01:04:58,618 --> 01:05:00,931
- Did you know Thomas Willis?
- PETE THREATT: Yes.
1006
01:05:00,966 --> 01:05:03,175
INTERVIEWER:
Played softball with Thomas,
friends with Thomas.
1007
01:05:03,209 --> 01:05:05,798
Can you tell me about Thomas?
What kind of guy he was?
1008
01:05:05,832 --> 01:05:08,663
What impressed me the most
was he had a good work ethic.
1009
01:05:08,697 --> 01:05:10,699
He seemed to be
a very stable individual.
1010
01:05:11,286 --> 01:05:15,187
ERICA TANKS:
Family-oriented, loving,
1011
01:05:15,221 --> 01:05:19,260
strict, firm, fair.
1012
01:05:20,088 --> 01:05:23,747
CAUSEY: Thomas Willis was
a father and a grandfather.
1013
01:05:24,196 --> 01:05:28,372
For an African-American in the South, he was making good money
1014
01:05:28,407 --> 01:05:31,617
in a union job
assembling aircraft wings
1015
01:05:31,651 --> 01:05:33,170
for Lockheed Martin,
1016
01:05:33,205 --> 01:05:36,587
the largest military contractor in the world.
1017
01:05:37,347 --> 01:05:40,005
He took a lot of pride
in what he did
1018
01:05:40,039 --> 01:05:42,041
and was very appreciative
of it.
1019
01:05:42,904 --> 01:05:45,079
CAUSEY: As a U.S. Government contractor,
1020
01:05:45,113 --> 01:05:48,082
Lockheed is barred from
discriminating against people
1021
01:05:48,116 --> 01:05:51,740
based on their race,
color or national origin
1022
01:05:51,775 --> 01:05:54,398
by Title 6
of the Civil Rights Act.
1023
01:05:55,020 --> 01:06:00,577
In 2001, Mr. Willis courageously reported to Lockheed management
1024
01:06:00,611 --> 01:06:03,338
that he and his African-American co-workers
1025
01:06:03,373 --> 01:06:07,515
were being intimidated by a
white employee, Doug Williams.
1026
01:06:07,860 --> 01:06:11,726
Williams work the assembly
line alongside Mr. Willis.
1027
01:06:12,451 --> 01:06:14,108
INTERVIEWER: I'm not going
to pull any punches with you.
1028
01:06:14,142 --> 01:06:16,110
I'm going to ask you, do you
believe that Doug Williams
1029
01:06:16,144 --> 01:06:17,594
was a racist?
1030
01:06:17,628 --> 01:06:19,009
THREATT: Check the form.
1031
01:06:19,113 --> 01:06:21,667
He had a problem
with blacks in general
1032
01:06:21,701 --> 01:06:24,152
and some black specifically.
1033
01:06:24,670 --> 01:06:28,398
INTERVIEWER:
Did he ever tell you why he
thought a race war was coming?
1034
01:06:28,950 --> 01:06:32,643
He told me on one occasion that he thought that the society
1035
01:06:32,678 --> 01:06:35,715
got to the point where the
blacks were given everything
1036
01:06:35,750 --> 01:06:40,168
and the white males no longer
had anybody representing us
1037
01:06:40,203 --> 01:06:42,412
and he thought that
that was the answer.
1038
01:06:42,446 --> 01:06:44,310
Violence was the answer.
1039
01:06:44,517 --> 01:06:48,176
They called in an investigator
to determine if there was
1040
01:06:48,211 --> 01:06:51,697
any type of racial threats
being made
1041
01:06:51,731 --> 01:06:55,459
and Mr. Willis told him exactly
what was going on.
1042
01:06:55,804 --> 01:06:59,808
Thomas' comment to me was that
he felt like the company
1043
01:06:59,843 --> 01:07:01,879
ought to do something
1044
01:07:01,914 --> 01:07:05,918
and that he wasn't going to quit until something was done.
1045
01:07:06,436 --> 01:07:10,164
He gave them at least three
examples of death threats
1046
01:07:10,198 --> 01:07:12,235
that were racially motivated
1047
01:07:12,269 --> 01:07:15,376
and they were directed at blacks
working in the plant.
1048
01:07:16,411 --> 01:07:19,621
CAUSEY: Doug Williams was
ordered to attend diversity
1049
01:07:19,656 --> 01:07:24,350
and anger management classes
but repeatedly refused to go.
1050
01:07:24,799 --> 01:07:27,457
According to his
African-American co-workers,
1051
01:07:27,491 --> 01:07:30,011
he continued his racial taunts.
1052
01:07:30,839 --> 01:07:35,258
One day, Williams put a
white work booty on his head.
1053
01:07:36,190 --> 01:07:37,605
I'm from the South.
1054
01:07:37,639 --> 01:07:43,611
Everybody that I know,
know what that signify.
1055
01:07:44,612 --> 01:07:48,340
CAUSEY: Some African-American employees assumed he was imitating
1056
01:07:48,374 --> 01:07:49,962
the Ku Klux Klan
1057
01:07:49,996 --> 01:07:53,034
and reported the incident
to their supervisors.
1058
01:07:53,966 --> 01:07:57,245
BLAIR:
He wore that not for a little
while. He wore that all day.
1059
01:07:57,418 --> 01:07:59,661
Finally, the assistant plant
manager comes back down
1060
01:07:59,696 --> 01:08:01,974
and says, "Doug, Mr. Williams,
1061
01:08:02,008 --> 01:08:03,907
you've got to take that
booty off your head."
1062
01:08:03,941 --> 01:08:06,116
Their conversation
was quite escalated.
1063
01:08:06,358 --> 01:08:09,464
Jack insisting that he pull
the cap off, Doug refusing.
1064
01:08:09,706 --> 01:08:12,709
And he wanted to know not
why he had to take it off.
1065
01:08:12,743 --> 01:08:15,056
He wanted to know
who had reported him.
1066
01:08:15,539 --> 01:08:17,058
He wanted the names.
1067
01:08:17,714 --> 01:08:21,200
He did not want to give in
because he thought that
1068
01:08:21,235 --> 01:08:24,479
he had been falsely
accused in this situation,
1069
01:08:24,514 --> 01:08:26,447
that his intent was not racial.
1070
01:08:26,481 --> 01:08:31,037
It was merely the hazing
of the new employee
1071
01:08:31,072 --> 01:08:32,418
or a practical joke.
1072
01:08:33,661 --> 01:08:38,010
CAUSEY: Without approval from Lockheed, Williams took a week off.
1073
01:08:38,252 --> 01:08:41,462
When he did return to work,
he wasn't punished.
1074
01:08:41,979 --> 01:08:45,121
Lockheed again ordered him
to diversity class
1075
01:08:45,155 --> 01:08:47,468
and again, he refused to go.
1076
01:08:48,779 --> 01:08:50,609
BLAIR:
He was having a lot of anger
1077
01:08:50,643 --> 01:08:53,059
about what Lockheed Martin
was doing to him.
1078
01:08:53,198 --> 01:08:56,753
Went out to his truck,
got his guns and came back
1079
01:08:56,787 --> 01:08:58,582
and that's when
the shooting started.
1080
01:08:58,617 --> 01:09:00,791
[gunshots]
1081
01:09:00,826 --> 01:09:05,348
He had shotgun in his hand,
rifle on his back,
1082
01:09:05,382 --> 01:09:07,626
bullets draped around
both sides of him.
1083
01:09:07,660 --> 01:09:09,662
And I got a good look
at his eyes
1084
01:09:09,697 --> 01:09:12,527
and I'm not going to say
per se he snapped
1085
01:09:12,562 --> 01:09:16,290
but there was something
there that was out there.
1086
01:09:16,566 --> 01:09:19,569
[gunshots]
1087
01:09:25,264 --> 01:09:28,543
THREATT:
Storms in the room, he goes
by numerous white employees,
1088
01:09:28,578 --> 01:09:31,684
doesn't shoot anybody and Mickey Fitzgerald, a brave man,
1089
01:09:31,719 --> 01:09:34,308
he was a white guy stood up
and said,
1090
01:09:34,342 --> 01:09:36,517
"Doug, you don't want
to do this." Doug kills him.
1091
01:09:36,551 --> 01:09:38,864
Just pointblank
shot him in the head.
1092
01:09:42,281 --> 01:09:46,216
CAUSEY: Williams then shot Sam Cockrell whom Williams believed
1093
01:09:46,251 --> 01:09:48,736
had complained to management
about him.
1094
01:09:50,358 --> 01:09:53,741
THREATT: And he goes straight to the area where the black co-workers
1095
01:09:53,775 --> 01:09:55,881
that he had been
intimidating worked.
1096
01:09:56,261 --> 01:09:59,540
He went around and shot us
how he wanted to shoot us,
1097
01:09:59,574 --> 01:10:01,127
where he wanted to shoot us.
1098
01:10:07,962 --> 01:10:11,690
THREATT:
He stood over Lynette McCall
and she begged for her life.
1099
01:10:12,518 --> 01:10:15,659
He shot Thomas Willis in the
back as he was running away.
1100
01:10:18,662 --> 01:10:20,906
We stepped over there to see
what Shirley was saying
1101
01:10:20,940 --> 01:10:24,220
and she was saying, "He's killed
himself. He's killed himself."
1102
01:10:24,496 --> 01:10:28,293
[♪♪♪]
1103
01:10:32,676 --> 01:10:36,162
I remember regrouping
emotionally
1104
01:10:36,197 --> 01:10:38,268
and it seemed like
I was in a daze.
1105
01:10:41,754 --> 01:10:45,655
It was devastating because
we just buried my mother
1106
01:10:45,689 --> 01:10:48,278
and I was like,
"This can't be happening."
1107
01:10:48,968 --> 01:10:50,349
And, um...
1108
01:10:57,839 --> 01:10:59,841
BLAIR:
The police found Thomas.
1109
01:11:00,325 --> 01:11:02,465
We got his wallet back
1110
01:11:02,499 --> 01:11:05,813
and found the Lockheed Martin
investigator's card in there.
1111
01:11:06,020 --> 01:11:08,091
The card was
crinkled and sweaty.
1112
01:11:08,125 --> 01:11:10,266
It had been in his
pocket of him working hours.
1113
01:11:10,300 --> 01:11:14,200
A lot of events that occurred
in the 18 months,
1114
01:11:14,235 --> 01:11:17,652
a lot of water under the bridge
of bad things.
1115
01:11:19,585 --> 01:11:21,277
Nothing was happening.
1116
01:11:23,520 --> 01:11:26,109
It's like his voice was unheard
1117
01:11:26,143 --> 01:11:32,115
and that's what I'm kind
of confused about.
1118
01:11:33,012 --> 01:11:34,738
Why did it go unheard?
1119
01:11:40,226 --> 01:11:42,436
LAVIRA WILLIS:
Listening to the investigations,
1120
01:11:42,470 --> 01:11:48,269
listening to the things my Dad
brought to the table
1121
01:11:48,304 --> 01:11:53,447
for Lockheed
and any real person,
1122
01:11:53,481 --> 01:11:57,347
any sane person would know
that something's not right.
1123
01:11:57,382 --> 01:11:59,418
Why didn't you do more?
1124
01:12:01,386 --> 01:12:03,353
BLAIR:
We filed suit for wrongful death
1125
01:12:03,388 --> 01:12:05,873
under the Mississippi
Wrongful Death Statute
1126
01:12:05,907 --> 01:12:09,083
seeking damages
for Mr. Willis being murdered
1127
01:12:09,117 --> 01:12:10,705
in an intentional act.
1128
01:12:10,947 --> 01:12:13,398
It went to the Fifth
Circuit Court of Appeals
1129
01:12:13,432 --> 01:12:15,676
which threw the case out
based on the fact
1130
01:12:15,710 --> 01:12:17,747
that it was
a workplace accident.
1131
01:12:18,955 --> 01:12:23,235
When they ruled it
as accidental,
1132
01:12:23,269 --> 01:12:25,202
I know what that word means.
1133
01:12:26,134 --> 01:12:27,446
Things happen.
1134
01:12:27,619 --> 01:12:31,347
You leave a cord out, you trip.
That's an accident.
1135
01:12:32,175 --> 01:12:34,315
You didn't mean
for that to happen.
1136
01:12:34,419 --> 01:12:36,144
I understand that.
1137
01:12:36,938 --> 01:12:38,871
But this was intentional.
1138
01:12:40,597 --> 01:12:42,358
CAUSEY:
At the time of the massacre,
1139
01:12:42,392 --> 01:12:45,257
Lockheed held federal
military contracts
1140
01:12:45,291 --> 01:12:47,293
worth billions of dollars.
1141
01:12:47,880 --> 01:12:50,296
If Lockheed
had been found guilty
1142
01:12:50,331 --> 01:12:54,404
of violating Thomas Willis and
his colleagues' civil rights,
1143
01:12:54,439 --> 01:12:58,063
it would have lost its lucrative government contracts.
1144
01:12:58,788 --> 01:13:03,586
Today, Lockheed is still the
largest employer in the area.
1145
01:13:04,241 --> 01:13:06,727
BLAIR: I do think there was
a fairly significant effort
1146
01:13:06,761 --> 01:13:09,005
to make sure it didn't
become too public.
1147
01:13:10,178 --> 01:13:14,217
CAUSEY: Vietnam veteran and law-abiding citizen, Thomas Willis
1148
01:13:14,251 --> 01:13:16,184
played by all the rules
1149
01:13:16,219 --> 01:13:19,187
and he was still struck down
by a racist.
1150
01:13:19,602 --> 01:13:22,950
If Mr. Willis' circumstances
couldn't protect
1151
01:13:22,984 --> 01:13:26,712
his civil rights,
then who or what could?
1152
01:13:28,058 --> 01:13:30,095
TANKS: I just wanted
to see justice done.
1153
01:13:30,509 --> 01:13:32,960
I needed somebody to say,
1154
01:13:32,994 --> 01:13:37,378
"Hey, we will not allow this
to happen again."
1155
01:13:38,103 --> 01:13:42,245
♪ Another man done gone
1156
01:13:43,177 --> 01:13:48,389
♪ Another man done gone
From the county farm ♪
1157
01:13:48,424 --> 01:13:51,254
♪ Another man done gone
1158
01:13:53,325 --> 01:13:56,880
How much damage has this
done to communities of color
1159
01:13:56,915 --> 01:14:00,470
and the answer is,
enormous, enormous damage.
1160
01:14:01,747 --> 01:14:04,129
POWELL: The country is becoming
increasingly diverse.
1161
01:14:04,474 --> 01:14:07,028
So the way race plays out today
not just in the South
1162
01:14:07,063 --> 01:14:10,860
but the whole country
is this profound anxiety
1163
01:14:10,894 --> 01:14:12,758
that a lot of people have,
1164
01:14:12,793 --> 01:14:15,174
especially white people have
about growing diversity.
1165
01:14:15,830 --> 01:14:17,625
They're quite scared because
they feel like they're about
1166
01:14:17,660 --> 01:14:20,076
to lose not simply
their neighborhood
1167
01:14:20,110 --> 01:14:22,665
but their sense of self.
Who they are.
1168
01:14:22,768 --> 01:14:25,564
So when they talk about
taking America back,
1169
01:14:25,599 --> 01:14:28,878
they're not talking about taking
it back from corporations.
1170
01:14:28,912 --> 01:14:31,363
They're talking about
taking it back from
1171
01:14:31,397 --> 01:14:35,160
the black Muslim foreigner
in the White House.
1172
01:14:35,194 --> 01:14:37,680
They're talking about
taking it back from the other.
1173
01:14:40,130 --> 01:14:44,894
LITWACK: You see a presidency
almost brought to ruin
1174
01:14:44,928 --> 01:14:48,518
by the mere fact of hating him
that intensely.
1175
01:14:49,830 --> 01:14:53,074
The Majority Leader
of the Senate,
1176
01:14:53,109 --> 01:14:55,491
"We won't do anything
to make it possible
1177
01:14:55,525 --> 01:14:58,770
for this person to succeed."
To succeed.
1178
01:15:01,048 --> 01:15:03,947
HORNE: We're still suffering
the after-effects
1179
01:15:03,982 --> 01:15:06,467
of those two powerful
regimes that comprise
1180
01:15:06,502 --> 01:15:09,159
the bulk of U.S. history:
slavery and Jim Crow.
1181
01:15:09,884 --> 01:15:12,542
You see it in terms of the
population of our prisons.
1182
01:15:12,577 --> 01:15:15,649
The United States imprisons
more people probably
1183
01:15:15,683 --> 01:15:18,479
than any other nation on planet
Earth, a disproportionate
1184
01:15:18,514 --> 01:15:20,585
percentage of whom are
of African descent.
1185
01:15:21,378 --> 01:15:24,554
You see it in healthcare
outcomes
1186
01:15:24,589 --> 01:15:27,005
in terms of life expectancy.
1187
01:15:27,799 --> 01:15:32,424
You see it in terms of per
capita income on a racial basis.
1188
01:15:33,529 --> 01:15:37,360
You see it even where you don't
want to see it in terms of
1189
01:15:37,394 --> 01:15:40,501
black preschoolers being
suspended at higher rates
1190
01:15:40,536 --> 01:15:43,021
than other preschoolers,
for example.
1191
01:15:43,504 --> 01:15:47,957
I think that this culture
has been created
1192
01:15:47,991 --> 01:15:53,031
that is still in some ways
punishing and penalizing
1193
01:15:53,065 --> 01:15:57,173
Africans with as noted,
no interrogation
1194
01:15:57,207 --> 01:16:01,867
of the lingering impact, no
attempt to connect the dots
1195
01:16:01,902 --> 01:16:05,664
between slavery, Jim Crow
and the present
1196
01:16:05,699 --> 01:16:09,426
and it's criminal
1197
01:16:09,461 --> 01:16:13,776
because people are suffering
and people are dying.
1198
01:16:13,914 --> 01:16:19,540
♪ Is there anyone
Who can explain to me ♪
1199
01:16:20,990 --> 01:16:24,303
♪ About the chains
On fallen men ♪
1200
01:16:26,305 --> 01:16:28,445
♪ A king was born
1201
01:16:28,860 --> 01:16:30,655
♪ And they put him down
1202
01:16:31,690 --> 01:16:35,142
♪ These are the days
When they rise again ♪
1203
01:16:35,867 --> 01:16:39,525
♪ These are the days
Of dangerous men ♪
1204
01:16:41,182 --> 01:16:42,943
♪ Stand tall
1205
01:16:43,978 --> 01:16:46,153
♪ Walk free
1206
01:16:48,224 --> 01:16:50,398
♪ Stay with me
1207
01:16:50,847 --> 01:16:53,643
♪ Brothers and sisters
Stand tall ♪
1208
01:16:54,644 --> 01:16:57,923
♪ Walk free
1209
01:16:59,269 --> 01:17:03,895
[♪♪♪]
1210
01:17:10,556 --> 01:17:12,697
POWELL:
There are many people who
don't believe in equality.
1211
01:17:12,731 --> 01:17:14,975
There are many people who
believe there's a natural order
1212
01:17:15,009 --> 01:17:16,942
of things and that
whites are at the top.
1213
01:17:16,977 --> 01:17:20,566
And to some extent, I would
argue that we're still fighting
1214
01:17:20,601 --> 01:17:23,639
the Civil War and
the South is winning.
1215
01:17:24,812 --> 01:17:28,057
ALLEN:
I absolutely think this country
missed the opportunity
1216
01:17:28,091 --> 01:17:32,026
to make a real difference
in how we treat each other,
1217
01:17:32,061 --> 01:17:36,617
how we think about each other
and I guess quite honestly,
1218
01:17:36,652 --> 01:17:39,137
I'm not sure how
it can be fixed.
1219
01:17:40,586 --> 01:17:42,968
[♪♪♪]
1220
01:17:43,003 --> 01:17:44,694
CAUSEY: Could she be right?
1221
01:17:45,246 --> 01:17:48,111
Is there really
no way out of this?
1222
01:17:48,146 --> 01:17:48,284
MEGAPHONE: When Eric Garner...
1223
01:17:49,734 --> 01:17:51,425
CROWD: When Eric Garner...
1224
01:17:51,459 --> 01:17:53,669
MEGAPHONE: Was placed
in an illegal chokehold...
1225
01:17:53,703 --> 01:17:56,326
CROWD: Was placed
in an illegal chokehold...
1226
01:17:56,361 --> 01:17:58,915
- And murdered.
- And murdered.
1227
01:17:58,950 --> 01:18:01,711
CAUSEY:
One thing I know for sure
is that oppression
1228
01:18:01,746 --> 01:18:04,645
against African-Americans
has been relentless
1229
01:18:04,680 --> 01:18:06,371
throughout our history.
1230
01:18:07,130 --> 01:18:10,064
This history is not
just in the past.
1231
01:18:10,271 --> 01:18:13,171
It's still very much
alive today.
1232
01:18:15,069 --> 01:18:19,039
JUDY SIMS:
The pain is constant whether
you're looking at something
1233
01:18:19,073 --> 01:18:20,972
that happened on television
1234
01:18:21,006 --> 01:18:24,113
or if you went
to the grocery store.
1235
01:18:24,251 --> 01:18:27,081
Mom and I both have been to two
of the popular stores here
1236
01:18:27,116 --> 01:18:30,982
on the island and have felt,
as Lynn had talked about
1237
01:18:31,016 --> 01:18:33,329
her experience
at the pizza parlor.
1238
01:18:33,363 --> 01:18:37,471
So it's not that
we cannot forgive.
1239
01:18:37,505 --> 01:18:39,853
It's not easy to forgive.
1240
01:18:40,646 --> 01:18:42,648
If someone's standing
on your foot
1241
01:18:42,683 --> 01:18:44,340
and they're still standing on it
1242
01:18:44,374 --> 01:18:46,722
and every time, again,
that wound gets opened
1243
01:18:46,756 --> 01:18:50,346
when we, Ferguson...
1244
01:18:50,380 --> 01:18:52,797
We all know what's in the news
1245
01:18:52,831 --> 01:18:57,525
and so it's just a constant
reopening of an old wound
1246
01:18:57,560 --> 01:19:01,046
that we are still just
incredibly impacted.
1247
01:19:09,675 --> 01:19:11,919
The yellow and purple?
1248
01:19:14,715 --> 01:19:16,303
I miss him.
1249
01:19:17,856 --> 01:19:19,996
TANKS:
I've lost a father through this.
1250
01:19:21,204 --> 01:19:23,862
Someone that
I can't see anymore.
1251
01:19:27,901 --> 01:19:29,626
INTERVIEWER:
Has the shooting affected you?
1252
01:19:29,834 --> 01:19:30,869
TREATT: Yes, it has.
1253
01:19:30,904 --> 01:19:34,114
I had to go through
a lot of counseling
1254
01:19:34,148 --> 01:19:37,911
to finally feel like that
I turned the corner.
1255
01:19:39,567 --> 01:19:42,881
TANKS:
Thirty years, I'm getting better
and I think we all are
1256
01:19:42,916 --> 01:19:46,091
but it helps by us being
so close knit.
1257
01:19:46,609 --> 01:19:50,647
[indistinct conversation]
1258
01:19:51,234 --> 01:19:54,755
I'm going to fight to the end
to try to make
1259
01:19:54,790 --> 01:19:56,688
everybody see what's going on.
1260
01:19:58,552 --> 01:20:00,692
The silence need to be broken.
1261
01:20:04,765 --> 01:20:09,528
We can't embed hate
into one another.
1262
01:20:09,908 --> 01:20:14,568
I'm not going to
embed hate into my child.
1263
01:20:16,432 --> 01:20:18,572
We need to have an
honest conversation.
1264
01:20:18,606 --> 01:20:21,920
LAWSON-JONES:
We need to sit down and put
all of the issues on the table.
1265
01:20:21,955 --> 01:20:25,751
Not just the things that
are fuzzy and feel good.
1266
01:20:26,304 --> 01:20:28,720
We need to address
the systematic racism
1267
01:20:28,754 --> 01:20:30,377
that happens in this country.
1268
01:20:30,411 --> 01:20:35,278
We need to dismantle the
institutions that continue
1269
01:20:35,313 --> 01:20:37,936
to keep not just
African-Americans
1270
01:20:37,971 --> 01:20:41,457
but people of color
in general subjugated
1271
01:20:41,491 --> 01:20:46,220
and it's difficult but it's
something that needs to happen.
1272
01:20:47,670 --> 01:20:52,192
HORNE: We need an official
government commission
1273
01:20:52,226 --> 01:20:55,851
to investigate and interrogate
1274
01:20:55,885 --> 01:21:01,580
the lingering impact
of both slavery and Jim Crow.
1275
01:21:02,029 --> 01:21:08,449
Perhaps we need also some
way to repair the damage.
1276
01:21:10,969 --> 01:21:13,385
LITWACK:
I would think that the
reparations that would be
1277
01:21:13,420 --> 01:21:17,596
a practical achievement would
take the form of refurbishing
1278
01:21:17,631 --> 01:21:20,945
the black community
in terms of
1279
01:21:20,979 --> 01:21:23,602
the quality of schools
and quality of housing.
1280
01:21:24,949 --> 01:21:27,192
There's a significant
economic change.
1281
01:21:27,952 --> 01:21:31,334
[♪♪♪]
1282
01:21:36,615 --> 01:21:39,549
CAUSEY:
Leveling the playing field
for African-Americans
1283
01:21:39,584 --> 01:21:42,276
seems to be one big answer.
1284
01:21:42,690 --> 01:21:45,141
We tried this
with reconstruction
1285
01:21:45,176 --> 01:21:47,247
and with the
Civil Rights Movement.
1286
01:21:47,626 --> 01:21:51,458
We saw what happened with
the pioneering black Canadians
1287
01:21:51,492 --> 01:21:54,495
and the freed slaves
of Robert Carter
1288
01:21:54,530 --> 01:21:57,533
who made the most
of their opportunities.
1289
01:21:59,259 --> 01:22:03,919
Today, their descendants continue to pursue their dreams
1290
01:22:03,953 --> 01:22:06,749
in whatever ways they choose.
1291
01:22:09,338 --> 01:22:12,789
LAWSON-JONES:
What I found in my research
and dealing with these families
1292
01:22:12,824 --> 01:22:14,757
that come from
this manumission,
1293
01:22:14,791 --> 01:22:18,761
all of them have this sense
of pride in their family,
1294
01:22:18,795 --> 01:22:20,521
the sense of pride
in themselves
1295
01:22:20,556 --> 01:22:22,385
and their work and what they do.
1296
01:22:24,008 --> 01:22:27,459
DUCKENFIELD:
We obtained certain advantages
from being free people.
1297
01:22:27,494 --> 01:22:29,945
If you look at
our family structure,
1298
01:22:29,979 --> 01:22:31,360
it stayed pretty intact.
1299
01:22:31,636 --> 01:22:33,638
We had two heads
of the household.
1300
01:22:34,708 --> 01:22:37,711
LAWSON-JONES: It did in some
ways give us a head start
1301
01:22:37,745 --> 01:22:41,577
in that we had to be
self-reliant
1302
01:22:41,611 --> 01:22:45,961
far long before other people
of color were free.
1303
01:22:46,409 --> 01:22:48,480
That gets instilled
into your family.
1304
01:22:48,515 --> 01:22:50,758
It becomes a part
of who you are.
1305
01:22:50,896 --> 01:22:52,726
You pass it on to your children
to their children,
1306
01:22:52,760 --> 01:22:55,004
their children
and so on and so forth.
1307
01:22:55,418 --> 01:22:58,663
[♪♪♪]
1308
01:22:59,629 --> 01:23:01,977
POWELL: The hard nut of it
is really whites.
1309
01:23:02,701 --> 01:23:06,843
So we had it exactly backwards
in terms of the Negro problem.
1310
01:23:06,982 --> 01:23:08,949
We have a white problem
in the United States
1311
01:23:08,984 --> 01:23:12,435
and I don't mean this
as a blame and whatever
1312
01:23:12,470 --> 01:23:14,851
but I think people won't get
this on their own.
1313
01:23:14,886 --> 01:23:16,646
It really takes a lot of work.
1314
01:23:16,681 --> 01:23:20,926
This is so deeply in our DNA and
it's reflected in our politics,
1315
01:23:20,961 --> 01:23:23,239
the way we do politics,
the way we do our economy
1316
01:23:23,274 --> 01:23:25,000
and the way we think
about ourselves.
1317
01:23:25,034 --> 01:23:27,933
But we actually need to give
birth to a new white identity,
1318
01:23:27,968 --> 01:23:30,108
a white identity that
doesn't need to dominate,
1319
01:23:30,143 --> 01:23:32,524
a white identity
that's not totally angst
1320
01:23:32,559 --> 01:23:35,320
about being in connection
and relationship with the other,
1321
01:23:35,355 --> 01:23:38,910
a white identity that recognizes
that it is the other.
1322
01:23:39,186 --> 01:23:42,155
[♪♪♪]
1323
01:23:42,845 --> 01:23:45,537
CAUSEY: But to do this,
we have to recognize
1324
01:23:45,572 --> 01:23:49,334
that we as white people
have benefited enormously
1325
01:23:49,369 --> 01:23:53,511
from our privilege at
the expense of other people.
1326
01:23:54,029 --> 01:23:57,066
The cost of this prejudice
and inequality
1327
01:23:57,101 --> 01:23:59,758
has come at far too high
a price.
1328
01:24:00,414 --> 01:24:03,762
Why are we so afraid
to face the possibility
1329
01:24:03,797 --> 01:24:08,940
that we might actually gain
something with true equality?
1330
01:24:10,217 --> 01:24:14,497
[♪♪♪]
1331
01:24:20,848 --> 01:24:23,989
♪ Oh Lord
1332
01:24:26,337 --> 01:24:28,649
♪ I'm strivin'
1333
01:24:30,375 --> 01:24:32,619
♪ Tryin' to make it
1334
01:24:33,689 --> 01:24:36,968
♪ Through this barren land
1335
01:24:38,487 --> 01:24:39,902
♪ Yes, sir
1336
01:24:40,005 --> 01:24:44,148
♪ But as I go from day to day
1337
01:24:45,287 --> 01:24:49,014
♪ I can hear my Savior say
1338
01:24:49,118 --> 01:24:51,672
♪ "Trust me child
1339
01:24:52,501 --> 01:24:55,987
♪ Come on
And I'll hold your hand" ♪
1340
01:24:58,196 --> 01:25:00,888
♪ I'm comin' up
1341
01:25:03,408 --> 01:25:06,101
♪ On the rough side
1342
01:25:08,172 --> 01:25:10,864
♪ Of the mountain
1343
01:25:12,969 --> 01:25:17,042
♪ I must hold to God
1344
01:25:19,390 --> 01:25:22,289
♪ His powerful hand
1345
01:25:24,188 --> 01:25:29,296
♪ I'm comin' up
1346
01:25:29,331 --> 01:25:32,161
♪ On the rough side
1347
01:25:33,852 --> 01:25:34,129
♪ Of the mountain
1348
01:25:39,272 --> 01:25:42,861
♪ I'm doin' my best
1349
01:25:43,138 --> 01:25:45,381
♪ To make it in
1350
01:25:45,554 --> 01:25:50,248
[♪♪♪]
1351
01:26:04,089 --> 01:26:09,681
♪ My hopes and my dreams
They are foolish things ♪
1352
01:26:10,924 --> 01:26:14,030
♪ In the arms of another man
1353
01:26:15,687 --> 01:26:19,829
♪ Civil code
It was built to hold ♪
1354
01:26:21,486 --> 01:26:25,041
♪ But it grows cold
So we rise again ♪
1355
01:26:25,766 --> 01:26:29,529
♪ These are the days
Of dangerous men ♪
1356
01:26:30,944 --> 01:26:32,670
♪ Stand tall
1357
01:26:33,809 --> 01:26:35,707
♪ Walk free
1358
01:26:39,504 --> 01:26:41,782
♪ Don't let them
Take that away ♪
1359
01:26:41,817 --> 01:26:43,543
♪ Stand tall
1360
01:26:44,613 --> 01:26:46,546
♪ Walk free
1361
01:26:46,925 --> 01:26:50,170
[♪♪♪]
1362
01:27:04,184 --> 01:27:06,082
♪ Stand tall
1363
01:27:11,226 --> 01:27:14,229
♪ We cannot wait another day
1364
01:27:14,712 --> 01:27:16,472
♪ Stand tall
1365
01:27:25,516 --> 01:27:28,795
♪ Stand tall
1366
01:27:29,209 --> 01:27:33,075
♪ Walk free
112919
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