All language subtitles for The.1619.Project.S01E04.WEBRip.x264

Three, two, one, zero.

We have commit, and we
have liftoff at 2:13.

A rat
done bit my sister Nell,

with Whitey on the moon.

Her face and arms
began to swell,

and Whitey's on the moon.

Out of the Protestant ethic

of hard work and sacrifice,

the fact is that
capitalism was built

on the exploitation and
suffering of Black slaves.

I can't
pay no doctor bills,

but Whitey's on the moon.

Ten years from now,
I'll be paying still,

while Whitey's on the moon.

You know, the man just
upped my rent last night,

'cause Whitey's on the moon.

No hot water, no
toilets, no lights,

but Whitey's on the moon.

Was all that money
I made last year

for Whitey on the moon?

How come I ain't
got no money here?

Hm, Whitey's on the moon.

I want to thank
every Amazon employee,

and every Amazon customer,

'cause you guys paid
for all this.

To
Whitey on the moon.

This is The 1619 Project.

It
wasn't so long ago

that ships were carrying
eager passengers

toward the shores
of a new nation.

Our forefathers
were constructing

the foundation of this nation
by interlocking, inseparably,

the blocks of our political
and economic freedom.

♪ There's a war goin' on
outside no man is safe from ♪

♪ You could run, but
you can't hide forever ♪

Capitalism
is complicated.

Even the experts have a hard time
giving a digestible definition.

Capitalism is one of those things that
we breathe in the air in this country

but I don't feel like most of us
actually know what capitalism means.

What is capitalism?

Yeah, it's sort of
one of these things

if you looked it up in
Webster's Dictionary,

it would say, "A system
of private property

in which the free market
coordinates buyers and sellers."

- Which means?
- Yeah, it's not really clear.

So we need a better
definition of capitalism.

♪ In between two worlds
trying to get dough ♪

♪ You know when the dough
get low, the jewels go ♪

♪ But never that ♪

When I think
about capitalism,

I think about the myth
versus the reality.

The myth of
American capitalism is that our system

is based on individual
achievement, and effort.

That you put in individual
effort, you'll get something back.

And that is the myth.

The reality is that
capitalism is based

on the exploitation of labor.

It's that simple,
it's that direct.

- ♪ You better realize ♪
- ♪ Livin' this 'til the day that we die ♪

♪ Survival of the fit,
only the strong survive ♪

♪ The strong survive ♪

♪ Livin' this 'til
the day that we die ♪

♪ Survival of the fit,
only the strong survive ♪

♪ Livin' this 'til the day... ♪

America prides itself

on being an exceptionally
free and prosperous nation

built on individual liberty,

and a brand of capitalism
that we are taught

makes the American economic
system the greatest in the world.

But the truth is, we live in a
country rife with inequality.

One defined as much by its
poverty, as by its prosperity.

In the last few years,

the pandemic made that harsh
reality glaringly clear,

as low-income Americans died
in disproportionate numbers,

and millions of so-called
unskilled workers

risked their lives
on the front lines.

And perhaps it was the
death, or the fear,

or the months in isolation,
but something shifted.

Americans quit their jobs
in unprecedented numbers.

A national fight over
labor rights ignited,

and many of us just
seem to be questioning

why we have come to accept

this particularly brutal
form of American capitalism,

a reality that has been playing out
in my own family for generations.

♪ These last two dollars ♪

♪ I'm not gonna lose ♪

♪ I'm not gonna lose ♪

Whenever I
go home to Waterloo,

I always try and stop by to see
my cousin, Chimiere Tillman.

Not only can she hook up
some ribs and collard greens,

but she's also warm,
generous, smart,

and the oldest daughter of
my uncle, Edward Tillman.

Uncle Eddie, as we called
him, was my favorite uncle.

He loved to laugh and
play practical jokes,

and maybe it was because
he was only 16 years older,

but he never got mad at
me, or disciplined me.

As a teenager, I often
spent more time at his house

than I did my own.

And at every milestone,
he was there,

smiling that proud, toothy grin.

This is
Mr. Edward Tillman.

When my dad died
when I was just 31 years old,

Uncle Eddie and I
grew even closer.

And yet, just three years
later, he'd be dead too.

Taken by cancer that
had gone undiagnosed.

Like a disproportionate number
of Black men in this country,

both Chimiere's dad and my own

died before they were old
enough to even qualify

for the social security they'd
spent decades paying into.

The deaths of both of our
fathers, both so young,

both so close to each other,
was devastating to us.

My dad was the oldest
living brother.

Mm-hmm.

And your dad and my dad
were extremely close,

which is probably why
you and I are so close.

Your dad used to live with us

when we lived on Lafayette
Street, I remember.

He stayed in the basement,

and he had the red
light, or the blue light,

and I always used to
think it was so cool.

Your dad never,

except when he would go
out of town for work...

Don't start already.

I'm not, I'm good.

Fuck! CHIMIERE: Sorry.

We always do this.

We cannot
talk about our dads.

Sorry.

He just never moved far
away from my dad, right?

Like even the house,
in the white house,

he was always so close.

- We were always in walking
distance of each other.

My Uncle Eddie
gave his body to the job,

but when he got sick,

he couldn't even get the
care his body required,

because like so many
other Americans,

the job he was working at the time
didn't offer health insurance.

He did
a number of jobs.

He worked in Marshalltown.

It was a meat-packing plant.

Dad worked at IFNY.

They were working
with steel and stuff,

and he would come
home just black,

and just smelt like metal,

and he would just hack
up all that stuff.

- I mean, I remember being there
when he would get off work,

and he couldn't close
his hands sometimes,

because his hands were
so swollen and sore.

Would wanna just
lay on the hardwood

because his back hurt so much.

Or he would have
you rub his feet.

- Not realizing, as a kid,
what that type of labor

was doing to his body.

But he did what he had to do,
and I think a lot about how,

when we look in,
in our community,

a lot of people say
we don't work hard,

and that the reason we
aren't able to get ahead

is because we don't work hard.

But our parents were like
the hardest-working people.

My family story mirrors that
of so many other working

and middle-class
families in this country.

Today, America stands as one
of the most unequal societies

in the history of the world.

In 2019, the top 10%
of American families

owned 76% of the
nation's wealth.

The middle 40% of families
owned 22% of the wealth,

but the bottom 50%?

They own just 1% of
the nation's wealth.

In America, capitalism is
said to take the low road,

relying on low wages,
longer workdays,

and low rates of
unionized workers.

And if we promote a capitalism
that is uniquely brutal,

a kind of winner-takes-all
capitalism

that allows such stunning
economic disparities,

it is in part because
it was founded

on the lowest road of
all, chattel slavery.

Just tell us when.

You doing it now?

I'm rolling.

- Professor Rothman, thank
you for taking the time

to speak with me.

You know, the
education I received

has long said that
slavery wasn't profitable,

which never made sense to me.

How did we come to
think about slavery

as not being profitable,
as not being capitalist?

Well, we are living in a society

that has very aggressively tried
to erase those connections.

But Europeans didn't bring
12 to 15 million Africans

to the New World just to
be extra racist to them.

They brought them
to the New World

so that they could
exploit their labor,

so that they could turn
their bodies into commodities

at the same time that they
were coercing their work

in order to grow things to
sell to people far, far away.

The slavery that
developed in the colonies

of British North America,
and then would expand

in the new United States
of the 19th century

was a slavery whose history
can never be separated

from the history of capitalism.

In this country,
we tend to think of slavery

as a Southern institution,

but slavery was our
nation's first big business.

And it was slave-grown cotton
that fueled our early economy,

and helped turn a fledgling
nation into a global powerhouse.

On the cusp of the Civil War,
the 10 major cotton states

were producing 66% of
the world's cotton,

and raw cotton accounted for
more than half of all US exports.

Explain for us how the
production of cotton

creates an entire financial industry
in the nascent United States.

So if we said, let's
start with cotton

and say that this is a
world in which cotton

is the equivalent of
oil in the 20th century,

it is the thing that
employs millions of people

far, far away from the sites
of actual cotton production.

New York banks, and New
York shipping companies,

and New York insurance companies

are playing a crucial
role in the transport

and sale of slave-grown
cotton out of New Orleans.

If we think about the labor that's
taking place in New England,

in the factories of
places like Lowell

that are turning slave-grown
cotton into cloth

that is sold throughout
the United States.

If you don't have
slave-grown cotton,

you don't have an American
industrial revolution.

It's as simple as that.

So how does this
history of slavery

shape workplace culture
in today's America?

- One of the problems we have is
the poverty of the English language

when it comes to words
for labor exploitation.

We have one really
good word, slavery,

and we can oftentimes talk
about the actual slavery,

but then we also use that language to
talk about other forms of exploitation.

Working for Uber is a
new kind of slavery,

or Amazon is the new slavery.

And I'm always very hesitant
about that language.

We need to, on the one hand,

be very committed to the
specificity of actual enslavement,

while at the same time,

recognizing that future
iterations of labor exploitation

owed a great deal to that past.

And we are living in
the wake of a system

that has long sought various
kinds of coercive mechanisms

to hold people in place,
and to extract their labor.

I've been,
the past six years, at Amazon.

I was working at various
different warehouses,

mostly temp jobs.

Only had a high school diploma,

so it was kind of limited
to what jobs I can get.

And my mom, she told
me about Amazon.

Amazon is the second-largest
employer in the country.

The company began as an
upstart online bookstore,

but today, Amazon is part
of our everyday lives,

and is worth $1.3 trillion,

making it a shining example
of American capitalism.

Our brand of capitalism
thrives on extracting labor

for maximum profit.

And perhaps no modern company

has perfected that model
better than Amazon.

One of the first
roles that I did was pick.

Basically, I'm picking
the customer orders.

Tote running, what you have to do
is grab a stack of yellow totes,

and wheel this cart
into every pick station

so that every picker
has totes to use.

I've done it all.

Derrick Palmer
works at the JFK8 facility

on Staten Island, and his
longevity on the job is rare.

Amazon is known for
its high turnover rate

amongst hourly workers, with
most warehouse employees

quitting or getting
fired within a year.

This high turnover
rate exists, in part,

because the work at Amazon
is so physically demanding.

In addition, it can
also be dangerous.

- An investigation is underway
after a deadly accident

at an Amazon fulfillment
center in Plainfield.

Workers complained
of breathing issues,

and burning in their
eyes and throats.

Amazon's serious injury
rate is nearly 80% higher

than the rest of the
warehouse industry.

In fact, in 2022,
a federal agency

opened an investigation
into Amazon

after three workers
reportedly died in New Jersey

in a span of just three weeks.

The productivity
metrics are very high.

It's a very fast-paced
environment.

Management is on top of
you getting those numbers,

'cause at the end of the day,

it really boils
down to the numbers.

Like, what can you
do to make sure

that this product is
getting out the building?

If you're not performing,

ultimately it's gonna lead
to you getting terminated.

Amazon's motto, they say,
safety is number one,

but if you are a
worker at Amazon,

you know that productivity
is number one.

Since this
nation's founding,

American capitalism has
pushed productivity for profit

at the expense of human beings.

Slaveholders employed
unspeakable violence

to increase cotton production,

and when they wanted to
grow their operations,

they mortgaged the actual bodies

of their enslaved for capital.

The bodies of Black people
became a business asset,

valued alongside a
wagon to carry products,

or a mule to help work the land.

At the time of the Civil War,

the value of the four million
enslaved people in America

was about seven
times the net worth

of all the nation's banks,

and worth more than all
of our nation's factories

and railroads combined.

And like any big
business owners,

slaveholders made sure to keep
track of their most valuable assets.

To do this, they
perfected intricate

and sophisticated standardized
record-keeping systems.

Tell me where we are right now.

What is the space that we're in?

- Well, we're here in
the special collections

at LSU Library in Baton Rouge,

looking at a bunch of materials

about how planters managed
cotton-picking on plantations.

So what is this here?

It looks just like
the composition books

that we see today that
I bought for my daughter

with the little speckled
cover, and the, the binding.

What are we looking at?

So,
this is one of the first

highly standardized
plantation account books,

where you have each
person's name down the side,

and then Monday through
Saturday, six days a week,

you have the amount of pounds
of cotton that they're picking.

So Scott picks 119
pounds, 132 pounds,

137 pounds, 134 pounds,

and that tallies
up to 522 pounds

over the course of the week.

But the other thing that's
amazing about these records

is that you always know
where every person is.

If they're not picking, then
you know that they're sick.

Sometimes you see a
woman gives birth,

and they're picking almost up
until when the child is born.

And the planter knows when they're
there, and when they're gone.

Sometimes you see
it's marked runaway,

so you know someone has
escaped from a plantation.

There's the kind of
imaginary version

of the Southern plantation
that we've constructed

that's old and kind of slow.

And instead, this is
like an assembly line.

I've picked,
on an average,

350 to 400 items an hour.

They push you to pick 400.

If you're on the Amazon website,

you put the item
in your cart, boom,

literally pops up on
your screen as a picker.

But when you're
looking at the screen,

it has something
called tag time.

How long it takes you
to scan this item.

And you're looking at this
tag time for the entire shift,

and you have to keep it
at seven, seven seconds.

Ultimately, throughout
the day, 4,000 items,

I've picked even 5,000 items

in a 10-hour shift.

Not only did
enslavers meticulously monitor

the whereabouts and
productivity of the enslaved,

they also tracked the monetary value
assessed to each enslaved individual.

And what is this tracking here?

It says value of
commencement of the year,

and value at the
end of the year.

And it looks like
for many of these,

the value has gone up?

- So for example, here we
have John, who's age 70.

At the beginning
of the year, $50.

The end of the year, $75.

This is a sign that the
market is going up overall,

but the market isn't the only
thing they're taking into account.

They're also taking into
account age and skill.

If you look to the
bottom of the list,

you see the names of all
the children and babies

on the plantation.

So the left side is males,
the right side is females.

And here we have the
youngest on the plantation,

Rose, six months, $75 at
the beginning of the year,

$100 at the end of the year.

- It's an emotional
thing to see someone's,

a human being's value,
is less than a broodmare.

To actually see it
on the, on the page.

And we know that enslaved people

were really well aware
of their own values.

Like, they knew
that the planters

were thinking of
them in these terms.

And, I mean, they also
knew that they could

affect their value, um.

That, you know, how they
presented themselves

could increase their value
or decrease their value.

And so, we know
that they used this

to try to shape the
course of their lives.

And even today,
our value as human beings

is still all too often connected to
what our bodies can do for profit.

- You know, if I'm
performing at a high level,

you shouldn't come to me and
say, "Hey, can you do more?"

I've done what
you told me to do.

I've exceeded expectations.

I shouldn't have to be pushed,
and pushed, and pushed.

My uncle Eddie
desperately wanted

a better life for his kids.

He even scraped together
money to send Chimiere

on a high school trip
to France one year.

But like so many
Black Americans,

no matter how hard
my uncle worked,

he could never
seem to get ahead.

A leaky roof or a medical
bill set the family back,

and drained his meager savings.

And so after high school,

that meant my cousin Chimiere
had to make tough choices,

her young dreams
snatched away by reality.

- Going to college was
something that I wanted to do,

but I decided I
couldn't go to college,

and I couldn't work
at the same time.

I couldn't deal with both.

I wanted to be independent,

so I couldn't have my
mom and dad saying,

"Hey Mom, I need this,"
or, "Hey Dad, I need this."

I mean, I still have
younger siblings

they still had to take care of.

- So let's talk about the
work that you have done,

and what kind of income.

I mean, you've had a
job as long as, um?

Eighteen years.

I worked at Catherines, it
was a plus-size women's store.

I started there in 2002,

and they thought they were doing
something when they gave me 5.15.

They didn't have a
lot of jobs out there,

so you took what you got,
and you work what you have.

After being there 15 years,
I still didn't make $10.

- So you were working
for 15 years in a job,

but now you have children,

and you're not even
making $10 an hour.

What was your paycheck,
and what were your bills?

So, I would be
happy when I got a

a 900, or a $1,000 check.

That's two weeks.

Mind you, my rent is $700.

I have a old house.

My light bill runs
me 240 a month.

Pray that the water bill
didn't come out that month.

I didn't get to have anything
until the second check.

So that first check of the month

went to every bill that I had,

and I lived off my credit cards.

My cousin
Chimiere is hardly alone.

Almost half of the
country's workers

between the ages of 18 and 64

are employed in low-wage jobs.

But it is Black Americans that
suffer the greatest poverty,

and the lowest wealth.

More than 150 years
after the end of slavery,

an average Black family holds
about 12 cents of wealth

for every dollar of wealth held
by an average white family.

In a country whose
economic system

was founded on the buying
and selling of Black people,

race and capitalism will
always be inseparable.

Okay, B
cam marker, take one.

- You said that capitalism is
structured through difference.

What do you mean by that?

It means that value

and wages, or how
people are compensated,

is determined by differences

by race, by gender, by age.

So capitalism is designed

to exploit labor
and human beings,

but all people are
not exploited equally.

Right.

- So you call this, and others
call this, racial capitalism.

Explain for people

who've never heard that
term before what that means.

Racial capitalism is capitalism.

It's one and the same.

It means that
there's no such thing

as a race-neutral capitalism
in the United States.

It just doesn't exist.

Despite
applying multiple times

for management positions,

Derrick was unable
to get a promotion

after six years on the job.

I'm looking at
my skillset, you know,

what I've brought to the
company, what I've done for them,

as far as training other people,
learning different roles,

performing at a high level, and
not being rewarded for that.

And then having someone
who's been with the company

for months compared
to my six years

being moved up, and they
just so happen to be white.

How could you not look at that

and think that that's
not a defining factor

as to why you didn't move up?

At the JFK8
facility on Staten Island,

more than 60% of the
warehouse workers like Derrick

are either Black or Latino,

while more than 70% of those
in management positions

are white or Asian.

And nationally, it only gets more
stark at the top of the ladder.

2021 Amazon workforce data shows

that only 10% of the
company's senior leaders

are Black and Latino,
while 66.4% are white.

One, two, three.

- We are thrilled that Amazon
is doing business in Alabama.

This is their second facility,

and their first
fulfillment center.

Amazon broke ground
in Bessemer, Alabama, in 2018.

A city just outside
of Birmingham,

Bessemer is more than 70% Black,

and more than 25% of the
population lives in poverty.

So when the giant arrived
offering an hourly rate

that was more than double
Alabama's minimum wage

of $7.25 an hour, many
in the region saw it

as a much-needed opportunity.

Cell phones
are on silent right now,

that would be great.

Ready? Okay. PRODUCER: Yeah.

So, let's talk about when
did you first start hearing

that there was going to be an
Amazon plant here in Bessemer?

I believe it was
maybe early 2019.

My understanding
is a lot of people

were just excited, because
everyone shops at Amazon,

and you just have this
image in your head

of what it might be like.

- Mm-hmm.
- What was the reality?

The reality is that
it looks pretty.

Um, you shop there, you
get packages at the door,

but it's grueling work.

- How quickly did your
excitement about this job

turn into regret?

The third day.

Three days?

- When I was walking out,
and I was, um, limping.

Why?

- My knees were hurting,
my feet were hurting.

When you're working in
the store department,

you not only walk the stairs,

but there's a step
stool in your station

that you have to walk every
day to go up to store items.

I told my sister, "I don't
think I'm coming back here."

She said, "Oh, it gets worse."

But eventually, I
realized, you know what?

Something needs to take place
here, and I'm not gonna leave.

I'm gonna stay and work together

to try to get some resolution.

- Your mother talked to you
about independence at work,

and this was something that
she wanted to instill in you.

Can you talk about that?

Growing up, my mom
used to talk to us about working.

That the world is not free.

You have to work to
get your bills paid.

She didn't have enough,

but she made sure that
we had what we needed,

and she always told us
that we had to work.

- What kind of work did
your mother do growing up?

She worked
at Mary Manufacturing.

That was one of the jobs.

It was a sewing coat factory.

She also worked at
a grocery store.

That was her second job.

- So she worked a lot.
- Mm-hmm, she did.

I knew that she had to
do it in order for us

to have food on the table,
and clothes to wear.

It seems like your mom

was instilling these
messages of hard work,

but it also seems like society
was sending a message too,

because of course,
we're told in America

that if you work hard,

you'll be able to get ahead,

and yet you're seeing
your mother working,

and that's not
coming true for her.

- And that's the same
thing for a lot of us.

As I get older, we talk
about this all the time.

Why is it that you
work all your life?

And to get to my mother's age,
she has to look back and say,

"All the money that
I've made in my life,

I'm still not ahead in life."

And it's like, it's an
ongoing thing for us all.

So that was the reason
why I've been fighting

for a long time,

for a lot of people,
and not just immediate.

Because I don't... to me, I'm like,
do y'all even see what's happening?

Life for so many
Americans is a daily struggle.

And yet, when we
question how can there be

so much financial suffering
in such a wealthy nation,

we're often told, hey, this
is a capitalist society.

But all capitalist
societies are not the same.

America has the stingiest
social safety net

of the Western democracies

when it comes to benefits
like unemployment,

parental leave,
and paid time off.

My uncle died, in part,
because we are the only

Western industrialized nation
without a right to healthcare.

And as a pandemic laid bare

the inequities of
an economic system

where low-wage workers
were literally dying

to make some corporations
record profits,

workers of all
races began to unite

in an unprecedented
demand for change.

10,000
John Deere workers

are already striking right now,

employees demanding higher
wages and better benefits.

- Kellogg's workers in
central Pennsylvania

are on the picket line,
joining thousands of workers

in Nebraska,
Tennessee, and Michigan

as they strike over
wage disparities.

- What they doing here?
- Nothing!

- Nothing.
- They playing us here.

What they doin'
'bout our healthcare?

By March of 2020,
Derrick and his colleagues

at JFK8 decided they
were risking too much

to not fight back.

As many as 100 employees

at amazon.com's Staten
Island fulfillment center

in New York City, known as JFK8,

walk off the job,
alleging the company

is mishandling its response
to the COVID-19 outbreak.

You know, my heart was pumping,

but I was like,
no, we gotta do it.

We have to do this.

We just went on that bullhorn,

and we told them everything
that was going on.

We told them how Amazon was
hiding the amount of cases

that they had.

They didn't want to tell workers
at all what was going on.

And how all they cared
about was the productivity.

We're taking the
stance against Amazon,

the beast Amazon, just
us workers doing it.

I read that the
workers in Bessemer

were trying to form a union.

That means they're going
through the same thing.

So, it's not like it
was a JFK8 problem.

It was an Amazon problem.

- Union!
- Now!

Nearly 6,000
workers at an Amazon warehouse

in Bessemer, Alabama,
fighting for the right

to collectively bargain
over working conditions.

Alabama, once home to
the capital of the Confederacy,

exists in one of the most anti-union
regions of the country, the South.

Let's show some
love for Ms. Jennifer Bates.

Hello, everybody.

Thank you for coming out
to support us on today.

When we began to
organize this union,

we had no idea that it
would be this large.

We were just a few
people trying to start,

um, a union to
make a big impact.

In 2020,
less than a year

after Amazon opened its
fulfillment center in Bessemer,

Jennifer Bates joined the historic
effort to unionize the facility.

- Some of the things that
they said we already have

is competitive wage,
and awesome benefits,

but what I say is,

you just offered us a
wheelbarrow and call it a car.

Everything look good...

Amazon
employees are not alone

in their push to unionize.

In the last few years,

the country has seen a surge
of efforts at big companies

that had never been
successfully unionized,

like Starbucks,
McDonald's, and Apple.

Unions help to ensure
decent pay and benefits,

even for the working class.

They are the primary reason
we have a 40-hour work week,

and overtime pay.

And yet, until recently,

union membership had been
declining for decades,

leaving workers unprotected,

and unable to negotiate
the terms of their labor.

Today, a defining feature
of our nation's capitalism

is a relatively low level
of union participation

compared to other countries.

In Iceland, more than 90%
of wage and salaried workers

belong to trade unions.

In Italy, it's more than 30%.

And in Canada, 27%.

But in America,

only 10% of wage and salaried
workers carry union cards.

So when you look at union
participation in other countries,

and compare it to America,

we rank near the bottom.

Why is that?

Hasn't always been that way.

We rank near the bottom today
because for the last 40 years,

we've experienced a kind
of onslaught against labor.

That is, laws passed making
it harder to organize,

as well as companies getting
support from the government

to suppress unions.

The fact of the matter
is that in the 1930s,

the US had one of the highest
union rates in the world.

And at the forefront of those
union movements in the 1930s,

and into the '40s were often
Black workers themselves.

Black Americans who faced
rampant labor discrimination

were particularly
interested in unionizing.

In the '30s and '40s,

union activism thrived
in the state of Alabama.

But those efforts were
met with intense violence.

Black Americans were
shot and killed,

tarred and feathered, and
lynched for trying to organize.

When we know we kind of
have this collective memory

of that violence
against Black labor,

Black labor organizers,

how does that memory contribute

to the kind of psychology we see

around labor organizing today?

I'm always astounded
at the courage,

especially of Black women.

And so, in many
ways, it doesn't seem

like the threat of
violence has succeeded

in dampening the
spirit to organize.

Instead, what we've seen
is the use of soft power.

And Amazon is the best example

of the use of soft power

to undermine unionization.

The amount of money
that Amazon paid

to fight the union could
have increased wages,

but they don't wanna do that,
because once you win one place,

you're gonna win everywhere.

At the top of 2021,

the union drive in
Bessemer, Alabama,

was gaining momentum,

but the warehouse workers,
a group that is 85% Black,

were up against Amazon's
strong anti-union campaign.

So, what did Amazon do?

How did they try to
counter the efforts

to bring the union to the plant?

They gave little
cards, and it tells you

how to fill out your ballot.

But on the back of
it, it had vote no.

So, people thinking
they're picking up a card

to show them how to
fill out their ballot,

but on the flip side
of it, it has vote no.

They had what they call
captive audience classes

to tell you that you
don't need a union.

The union's only here
to take your money.

Amazon released
videos to help managers

discourage labor
organizing efforts.

It is critical
that we recognize

the early warning signs
of potential organizing,

and escalate concerns promptly.

The most obvious
signs would include

use of words
associated with unions,

or union-led movements, like
"living wage" or "steward."

While Amazon maintains

that holding meetings
with employees

is a legally recognized strategy

that helps their workforce
understand the facts

about joining a union,

Jennifer says that some of her
colleagues felt intimidated.

They were coming to
our work stations,

asking us how we
felt about the union,

and why is it important that
we didn't bring a union in?

Amazon even requested
to change the timing

of the traffic lights outside
the Bessemer fulfillment center.

And while the company
says the request

was to avoid traffic congestion
during shift changes,

pro-union workers believed
it was to deter them

from canvassing at red lights.

What is it like going up against
a big company like Amazon

in a fight like this?

- Well, for me, the size of
the company didn't matter.

All I know is that we had to
bring light to a situation,

and fight to unionize for
better working conditions,

and the betterment of
ourselves and our families.

Today is Sunday.

I'm headed to JFK8
Staten Island Amazon

to get more signatures.

We're starting to get
closer to our election vote.

After staging
a successful walkout

in March of 2020,

Derrick and his coworkers
followed Bessemer's lead,

and decided to try and form
a union at their facility.

After we get the signatures,

we're gonna file an election

with the National
Labor Relations Board.

And once we file, every
Amazon worker in Staten Island

can vote on whether or
not they want a union

to represent them.

- Hi, how you doing?
- Hi.

- Did you hear about
the Amazon Labor Union,

or what we're trying to do?

Derrick and his
fellow union activists

at JFK8 spent several months

trying to gather enough signatures
to earn the right to a vote.

- So this is basically saying
that you want an election

to vote on whether or
not you want a union.

We're trying to fight for
things like more vacation time,

more personal time.

You know, actual sick time.

- Yeah, but we don't have sick time.
- Exactly.

I felt like I
always had it in me

to do something like this,

but the fact that
I'm actually doing it

inspires me to keep going harder

with getting cards signed,

with talking to
workers, inspiring them,

letting them know that
it's okay to speak out.

The particular
brutality of American capitalism

has been playing out for
centuries in this country.

And you can't talk about that
without talking about land.

The land that Amazon
broke ground on in 2018

in Bessemer, Alabama, once
belonged to the Creek Nation.

But in the early 1800s,

seeking to expand slavery
across the southeast,

the US government stripped
the Creek of 23 million acres,

an area that spans
roughly half of Alabama

and Southern Georgia,

and sold off parcels of land to
white men like James McAdory,

who became one of the wealthiest
men in Jefferson County

by selling slave-grown cotton.

After slavery was abolished,

Alabama and other
Southern states

simply developed new systems
designed to exploit Black labor.

In the decades
following the Civil War,

mining became central
to the Alabama economy,

and northern-based US Steel,
owned by prominent businessmen

including JP Morgan
and Andrew Carnegie,

dominated the industry.

At the turn of the century,

no other company in the nation
was bigger than US Steel.

And when it acquired the most significant
iron and steel company in Birmingham,

it also acquired their brutal
practice of convict leasing.

- This was a ghastly place,
just a ghastly place,

and this was the epicenter
of it all right here.

The reason the
cemetery was right here

was there were all these
mines surrounding it.

Let's talk about
convict leasing.

How would you define
convict leasing,

and how did it get started?

- So convict leasing, in
a kind of objective form,

was just the idea that, okay,
somebody breaks the law,

they get sentenced to prison,

or they get sentenced to a
fine that they can't pay,

and so the alternative
is hard labor.

The selling of the
labor of prisoners

became this huge economic force

for local governments
and state governments.

After the 13th Amendment
legally abolished slavery,

Southern states enacted new laws

aimed at recreating a
system of forced bondage.

These laws, called Black Codes,

criminalized the everyday
behaviors of Black people.

Black men were
arrested for vagrancy,

or walking along
a railroad track,

or for talking loudly
near white women.

The selling of prisoners' labor

became the single
biggest source of revenue

for the state of Alabama.

Bigger than any taxes
that were collected,

and it was nearly that way
for many Southern states.

But then also, this is a way
that these big enterprises

could also make huge
amounts of money

because the cost of the labor
to them was almost nothing.

- So we are standing in this
very innocuous landscape.

Looks like we could be
anywhere in America,

just overgrown,
brush, wooded area.

But something really
sinister happened here.

Talk about where we are.

It's difficult to picture,

but in every direction
there were coal mines,

and in several of those mines,

there were thousands of men

who had been forced
to work there,

ostensibly as sentences for
crimes that they committed.

But in reality, these were not,

on the whole, actual criminals.

They were whipped in the
mornings and whipped at night

if each man did not bring
out the set amount of coal

that was assigned to
him every single day.

The lash was totally
ubiquitous in this world.

And so these men were chained
together, almost at all times.

And then once deep in the
earth, they didn't have water,

they didn't have
sufficient food.

Huge numbers of them died
in accidents and explosions

down in the mine.

And then when people
died, either at work,

or back in the stockade,

they were oftentimes
brought back

to basically where we are now,

and dumped in what was
not really a cemetery.

This whole area became
a burial ground.

- So we are standing at
the site of a mass grave.

There's no other
thing to call it.

It was a one at a time,
month after month,

year after year, decade
after decade, mass grave.

And everybody knew that.

People always knew it was there.

As a society, we
chose to forget.

But the lives
of Black men and boys

who were forced into
what's been called

slavery by another name
should never be forgotten.

Alabama became the last state

to end the practice of
convict leasing in 1928.

Steel production remained a major
industry in the region for decades.

In fact, it wasn't
until the 1980s

that US Steel's power waned.

And that land in Bessemer

that once belonged
to the Creek Nation

that was sold to
slaveholder James McAdory,

that was eventually
sold to US Steel?

In 2020, US Steel
sold it to Amazon.

Government officials in
Alabama promised Amazon

more than $50 million in tax
breaks to come to Bessemer.

These incentives, some argue,
could have been better spent

on desperately needed roads,
libraries, parks, and schools.

Meanwhile, Alabama citizens

carry the burden of these
types of tax breaks.

The state has the fifth highest
sales tax rate in the country,

and even taxes bare
necessities like food.

- So it's off of our backs
as they become billionaires,

but they treat us like peons.

Our lives matter.

And when we decided that
we needed the unions

because we're tired
of being mistreated,

we're tired of being ignored.

By the spring of 2021,

Jennifer and her colleagues
had begun to cast their ballots

in a historic vote
that had the potential

to unionize the first Amazon
warehouse in the nation.

So take me to the
day in spring 2021

when the vote is finally there.

Eyes all over the country
are watching this vote

because people say this is
a test, for many things.

You had to have been
nervous the night before.

Did you sleep?

I was nervous the whole time,

because I had employees who
tried to get their ballots back.

- To switch their vote?
- To switch their vote,

because they didn't have enough
information about the union.

Because Amazon had told 'em

that you're gonna
lose your benefits.

You're gonna get, you can
end up with less money.

And they believed 'em.

I was on my break when
the news came through.

We saw the news
media there in a tent

with some of the
anti-union people.

They were all set up in a tent.

So we knew that they was getting
ready to make an announcement.

So, we got a message
giving us the total,

and it was like a gut punch.

- Tonight, Amazon has
officially defeated efforts

to unionize workers at its
warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama.

And I went inside off the break,

and most of the people had
stopped working in my area.

One of the young ladies,
she said, "Did you hear?"

She said, "What
happened, what happened?"

It was a sad day.

For me, I felt like I may
have let 'em down, you know?

Even though they said
no, you didn't, you know?

I felt like because I
was fighting, you know,

fighting for 'em, and
because they had hoped

that some changes
were gonna come.

I really wish we could
have brought a victory.

When you saw the the results,

which was very heavily
against the union,

were you suspicious of those
results when you saw it initially?

We were very suspicious,

because we had a huge
following for the union.

We had a huge support.

Amazon
benefited from laws

dating back to the late 1940s

that weakened the
effectiveness of unions,

and kept workers
from organizing.

And Alabama's hardly alone.

For decades,
Republican legislatures

have passed anti-union
laws across the nation,

eroding workers' rights,

and making it harder
for them to unionize,

and negotiate higher
wages and benefits.

These efforts have even succeeded
outside of the Black belt,

in the once heavily
unionized Midwestern states.

But in this country,

laws have not been
the only obstacles

working against unionizing.

In Alabama, after the
end of convict leasing,

Black workers attempted to create
solidarity with white workers

to form multiracial labor unions

that would improve working
conditions for all.

But much like the labor
organizing efforts

of meat-packing workers in
my hometown of Waterloo,

or dock workers in Philadelphia,

the white elite used race to
divide interracial organizing.

And some would argue
that even today,

as labor fights play
out across the country,

too many white workers still
choose racial solidarity

over their own
economic interests.

Whiteness
has its own value,

but as W.E.B. Du Bois
says, it's a paltry wage.

That what they get from
holding onto whiteness

is so minuscule to
what they could get

by holding onto solidarity.

Together, they could
take the plant.

They could actually fight
and win a living wage.

But by standing apart,

what they end up getting
is pride in being white,

pride in not being on welfare,

and pride in not
necessarily having to live

in those neighborhoods
where Black people live.

But ultimately, they live in
neighborhoods that are not so much better.

In April of 2022,

two years after they walked off
their jobs in defiant protest,

Derrick and his
fellow union activists

had secured enough
signatures for a vote,

and their grassroots effort had
attracted national media attention.

The defeat in Alabama

had revealed Amazon's
crushing anti-union tactics.

So as the ballots were
counted in New York,

tensions were high.

All this attention
was towards Bessemer,

and then when they lost,

the general consensus
about that was it's over.

There will never be
another union drive.

So, it's a lot of pressure.

By mid-afternoon,
the results were in.

Yeah, let's go!

2,654 votes
for the union,

2,131 against.

Today, we make history!

Thank you all, appreciate it.

Oh, we wanna thank Jeff
Bezos for going to space,

'cause when he was up there,
we were signing the people up.

We just became the first union

for Amazon in the United
States of America.

So like, ah, this is one of the
proudest moments of my life.

We won.

The Amazon
Labor Union win

was an astounding victory

against a notoriously
powerful corporation.

But Derrick and his fellow
organizers are not alone.

In the first half of 2022,

union activists across the
country won more elections

than they had in
the last 20 years.

AOU! AOU! AOU!

- Union's in the house!
- Hey!

- Unions in the house!
- Hey!

- Unions in the house!
- Hey!

In the winter of 2022,

almost a year after
their first attempt,

Jennifer and her colleagues
geared up for a second vote

after the National
Labor Board ruled

Amazon had improperly
interfered with the election.

- You say power, unions!
- Power!

- Unions!
- Power!

- Who got the power?
- We got the power!

- What kind of power?
- Union power!

And up next,
we have from the Amazon

Worker Organizing Committee,

Jennifer Bates and
Darryl Richardson.

Make some noise!

- My name is Jennifer
Bates. Guess what, y'all?

Today, we have so many
people who's on fire,

and want to bring unions back.

Who understand the assignment.

Solidarity,
union, yes!

Amazon declined our
request for an interview.

But in a statement they said,

"The health, safety, and
well-being of our employees

"are top priorities.

"We're grateful to
all of our employees

"for their time, talent,
and hard work every day.

"We've invested
billions of dollars

"in new operations, safety
measures, technologies,

"and other innovative solutions
that protect our employees.

"We're committed to
giving our employees

"the resources they
need to be successful,

"creating time for
regular breaks,

"and a comfortable pace of work,

"and working
directly with anyone

who needs additional support
to meet their goals."

The truth is, we
all know someone

who stayed in a job they hated,

because they needed healthcare,

or because they felt
powerless to demand better.

And while Black workers
might have it the worst,

we all suffer under
this uniquely brutal

and unequal system of capitalism

that was born on the plantation.

For my cousin Chimiere,

the government's effort
to relieve that suffering

during the pandemic,

the stimulus checks that
paid her more than she earned

when she was working,

only revealed a deeper truth
about the country we live in.

- It shouldn't have took the
pandemic for me to be able to live.

I've actually lived more
comfortable during this pandemic

than I have ever
done in my life.

- And what does that say
to you about our society?

That it's really,
it's jacked up.

Why does, I mean,
a lot of people

are losing their family members.

And I feel so bad for
'em, but now I can live.

So you're losing your uncle,
your cousin, your friends.

But this is the only
way you noticed me.

You spent much of your career

writing about labor struggles,
and social movements.

What needs to happen so
that we don't have to be

victims of the past,

where race has been used
to divide these movements,

really to the harm of
most of us in society?

Right, I guess three things.

One, we need to come
to grips with the past,

in a serious way.

Two, we actually need a
critique of capitalism,

and how capitalism and racism
kind of function together

to oppress not just Black
people, but all of us.

All of us.

And the third thing, I think,

is that we need to think
seriously about solidarity.

What does that mean?

In order to come together
in a thoughtful, courageous,

and forthright way means
you've got to engage the past.

We've got to know
what divides us,

because part of the
thing that divides us

makes wealth for other people.

- Mm-hmm.

The reality is, American
capitalism requires complicity.

It is hard to imagine
regular people

allowing the crime of
slavery for a cotton shirt,

or sugar in their tea.

And yet today, we look
away from the fact

that workers are being exploited

for the convenience
of one-day delivery

that's just a click away.

The movement Jennifer
and her coworkers started

helped spark what's been called

the most important moment
in recent US labor history.

I think what we
did was lit a fire,

and shined a light on something

that's been going on
for years and years.

People been standing
up for their rights.

They have been taking
on their companies,

and they're feeling
like, you know what?

I am somebody.
We are valuable.

It's hard to
tell if the changes

that occurred over the last
few years will be lasting.

But perhaps the devastation
wreaked by the pandemic,

and the gross
inequities it exposed,

helped American
workers recognize

that we do have a choice
about what we will accept,

and the power to create
the country that we want.

Do you think you'll
win this fight?

I believe we will.

I believe we will.

And if you don't
win, what happens?

We keep fighting.

We keep fighting.
We keep fighting.

But fighting
for equality in America

has always been dangerous
for Black people.

In fact, sometimes just
walking down the street

provokes an emotion that
results in deadly force.

My client truly
was in fear for his life.

In his own words,
he feared for his life.

The two officers
feared for their lives.

And that
fear of Black people,

and Black freedom, dates
all the way back to slavery.

- Being a good member
of the white community

is to be constantly
on the lookout

for any type of suspicious
behavior among Black people.

And it has become a type of
historical memory, right?

That consciously and
unconsciously gets passed down

from generation to generation.