Original subtitles

The air is beautiful. Fresh.

Much better than Five Points.

The experience of living in Five Points...

...particularly when Copper begins, for African Americans is sort of like a purgatory.

When we think about black New York in this period, we've got to think of a population...

...that has its own communities, has its own churches, has its own social world.

But that is increasingly feeling threatened.

The influx of Irish immigrants coincided with the beginning of an exodus...

...from the Five Points by African Americans.

Since the riots, my people have been moving out of Five Points.

Because the Five Points had become...

...a life threatening neighborhood for black people.

We burned down your last orphanage, Garland. We can burn this one down too.

No man will harm these children.

There was a tremendous fear among white working class New Yorkers...

...that there would be an influx of even more African Americans into the city.

One of the things that drove the draft riots was a fear of competition.

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation has put fear in the hearts of the Irish.

They're terrified that the Negroes will come north and steal all their jobs.

The draft riots culminated the perfect storm of events.

The US government were going to start drafting people into the war.

However, black people, since they were not citizens, were not going to be conscripted.

So you can imagine the working class in Five Points at that time were pretty pissed off...

...because now we're fighting a war and going to die...

...for black people who they didn't really like.

Her brothers were hung by the neck from that very lamppost.

She remembers the screams.

During the draft riots, not only were men hung, but in some cases they were mutilated...

...or carried across all of Five Points by their genitals...

...which I can't even imagine.

Perhaps Freeman represents a time when there will be no prejudice...

...much like Martin Luther King wanted for us.