[Horn plays] [Drum roll begins] FANNIE LOU HAMER: I question America, Is this America?

The land of the free and the home of the brave.

ELAINE BROWN: The Black Panther Party with many other groups and organizations has organized another community survival conference YURI KOCHIYAMA: Hopefully Asians will side with the most dispossesed oppressed, and marginalized.

Remembering our own history.

DOLORES HUERTA: Down with violence.

Abajo!

Down with racism.

Abajo!

Down with sexism.

Abajo!

ELLA BAKER: We who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens.

FANNIE LOU HAMER: It's now time for America to wake up ♪ Revolution!

♪ [Music builds] ♪ Revolution is not a spectator sport ♪ ♪ Silence is a noise too ♪ [Music begins] ♪ Somewhere ♪ ♪ Somewhere there is an incorruptible spirit ♪ ♪ Reremembering a time ♪ ♪ When we voted with our thoughts ♪ ♪ and our minds ♪ ♪ It begins with you ♪ ♪ It begins with you loving you ♪ ♪ enough to love me as I am you ♪ [Bassline plays] [Cowbell and splashing water] National educational television presents Perspectives.

[Piano music begins] MALE VOICE: The men who have come here today to sit down and talk with us.

Are the leaders of the Negro community.

Who have assumed the risk of transforming the American ideal into reality.

These men, sometimes labeled The Big Five are the captains of five of the most vigorous organizations, Different in their history.

Their methods and their means, but united in their purpose.

They lead the battle for freedom.

Now.

AJA MONET: The landscape of the leadership of Black America in the 1960s was an image of mostly men but it wasn't only the men who were the leaders of the movement there were women who were the architects of some of the most meaningful movements in history These are the women that deserve a moment in history for their significant contributions toward a better America These are the women who stood beside or in front of the men who we think of In a nation created for the people by the people, and of the people we often neglect the many contributions of women for the people this is, Of the People.

[Crowd singing "Revolution"] Since reconstruction, America's identity is shaped by a cycle of promise, violent backlash, and oppression.

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES: Coming out of World War Two, [Jazz music begins] we have this really burgeoning Civil Rights movement where, soldiers who were returning from fighting fascism in Europe, in a segregated army, decide that they are not going to come back home and, go back under what W.E.B.

Dubois called the veil.

Civil rights organizations have been trying to chip away at apartheid laws in the United States and Brown v.Board of Education becomes becomes this landmark ruling that's really seen as like the nail in the coffin for legalized segregation.

KEISHA N. BLAIN: This includes the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.

And that particular boycott, I think, helps to demonstrate not only, the power of grassroots organizing, but in particular the power of black women's activism.

BETTINA APTHEKER: Brown versus Board of Education was 54' Montgomery bus boycott was 55' 56' March on Washington was 57' and then the lunch counter started, I think in 60' All happening in stages and different movements coming together.

ELLA BAKER: And it is beginning.

On the basis that it believes that a political party should be open to, all the people who wish to subscribe to its principle That means [Music intensifies] It's open to it's open to even the sons of the planter on whose plantation you work If that son has reached the point that he's willing to subscribe to your principle.

KEISHA N. BLAIN: Ella Baker's story really helps to encapsulate the fact that black women have been involved in political advocacy for very long time.

She ultimately, collaborates with Martin Luther King Jr.

In the context of his organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference AJA MONET: Ella Baker, a 30 year organizer was Dr.

King's first hire in the SCLC.

Her success in organizing the Montgomery Boycott provided a sought after skill set [String music continues] NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES: Now, the idea of this was, of course, again, that, church leadership, should be at the center of this black freedom struggle.

But it also tended, because of that, to be much more conservative, Ella Baker really believed that, for these organizations to be successful, they had to be from the grassroots.

They couldn't be classist, they couldn't be elitist.

And you had to actually let the people who were suffering the most be the ones who lead.

KEISHA N. BLAIN: Her words would essentially fall on deaf ears.

And I think the challenges that she faced in that context not only pushed her out of the organization, but in many ways, it helped her to imagine a much better future.

[String music fades] And this new organization is the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee which Ella Baker, helps to establish at Shaw University in April of 1960.

She certainly is the visionary, but what's remarkable about the way the group is established is that she takes this posture, that she cares so much about their voices, that she doesn't want to overshadow them.

They were pushing a different model, which we talk about as the grassroots organizing tradition.

As a space in which they helped to cultivate local leaders and in this case very dynamic leaders like Fannie Lou Hamer.

FANNIE LOU HAMER: So what we mean by black power is we mean to have not only black political power, but black economic power to have a voice in the educational system that our kids will know not only the black kids, but the white kids should know the kind of contribution that have been made by black people throughout this country.

We want to determine some of our destiny.

[Rock music plays] NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES: Fannie Lou Hamer, of course, was one of those grassroots, organizers that, Ella Baker talked about.

she became one of the most powerful organizers for, voting rights and, the effort to democratize Mississippi and therefore democratize America she didn't have that polished look.

She didn't speak in a polished way, but she spoke with authority and with experience and a passion that really translated, because she was so brave.

FANNIE LOU HAMER: We are tired.

We are sick and tired of children suffering from malnutrition.

People dying the clothes two thirds of the people have on you now is clothes was been sent to ‘em.

We are tired of that.

[Crowd applauds] NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES: As we were seeing, civil rights efforts in places like Alabama and Georgia, there had been almost zero ability to, organize and register voters in Mississippi because Mississippi was just so violent.

[Music stops] [Banjo plays] FANNIE LOU HAMER: Mississippi is still a very rough place.

People is not just walking up like they used to do in the past.

Walking out.

No shooting a man down or getting maybe two or three hundred people carrying you out and lynching you but it's, it's in a most subtle way they let you starve to death, not give you jobs.

These are some of the things that's happening right now in Mississippi.

[Banjo music fades] See, Mississippi is not actually Mississippi's problem.

Mississippi is America's problem.

Because if America wanted to do something about what has been going on in Mississippi, it could have stopped by now.

It wouldn't have been in the past few years, 40, between 40 and 50 churches bombed and burned, you see and this, this, you know, this lead me to say, you know, all of the burning and bombing that was done to us and the houses.

Nobody never see it too much about that.

And nothing was done.

But let something be burned, you know, by a black man.

And then, my God, you know.

You see, the flag is drenched with our blood.

Because, you see, so many of our ancestors was killed because we have never accepted slavery.

We have to live on it.

We've never wanted it.

So we know that this flag is drenched with our blood.

So what the young people are saying now, give us a chance to be young men, respected as a man as we know, this country was built on the backs of black people across this country.

And if we don't have it, you ain't going to have it either, cause we going to tear it up.

That's what they say.

And people ought to understand that.

I don't see why that don't understand.

They know what they've done to us all across this country.

They know what they've done to us.

This country is desperately sick.

And man is on the critical list.

I really don't know where we go from here.

[Instrumental music plays] KEISHA N. BLAIN: And so, from age 12 onward, Hamer spent all of her life essentially working as a sharecropper.

And she would do that up until, she joined the civil rights movement, in 1962, at the age of 44, Fannie Lou Hamer once argued that there would be no Fannie Lou Hamer, were it not for Ella Baker and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

And that statement is so important in understanding not only the relationship between Hamer and Baker, but also the significance of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, One of the things that Hamer does, is she helped to establish an organization that challenges the white only Democratic Party of the state of Mississippi.

And she's able to do that with the help of Ella Baker, and they establish whats called the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

in August of that year when they decided to attend the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

At that convention, Hamer delivered a powerful speech to the nation.

And in fact, the speech that she delivered, is perhaps the most significant speech of her entire political career.

[Music intensifies] FANNIE LOU HAMER: Mr.

Chairman, and to the credentialed committee.

My name is Mrs.

Fannie Lou Hamer and I live at 626 East Lafayette Street, Ruleville, Mississippi.

It was the 31st of August, 1962 that 18 of us travelled 26 miles to the county courthouse in Indianola to try to register to become first class citizens.

We was met in Indianola by policemen, highway patrolman, and they only allowed two of us in to take the literacy test at the time.

Is this America?

the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones of of the hook because our lives be threatened daily!

Because we want to live as decent human beings, in America.

Thank you.

[Applause] KEISHA N. BLAIN: Some people who heard the speech later said that they were politicized after they heard the speech.

It ultimately compelled them to join the Civil Rights Movement ELAINE BROWN: That movement gave to all of these things, and we continued that movement.

So we can only bow down to those people like Fannie Lou Hamer gave her life coming out of the cotton fields of Ruleville, Mississippi, sterilized against her will like so many other black women in Mississippi and still fought for some basic rights for black people KEISHA N. BLAIN: I think what becomes clear in the 1960s, is that the passage of certain laws are, on the one hand, important.

They helped to inspire a movement.

They helped that helped to instill some sense of confidence.

among those who are working very hard to bring about change, but on the ground, the challenges persist.

So the law is, on the one hand powerful and an indicator that things are moving, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

[Music fades] [Piano music begins] AJA MONET: America as a young country entering the 1960s.

There was a great wealth of change on the horizon.

Change that would not come without many difficult challenges.

The struggle for human rights in America, among its most marginalized groups, led to the organization of groups that would provide aid and help to further the push for racial equality.

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES: The strategy of nonviolence was actually to provoke violence, that tactic begins to really wear on the younger people in the movement.

They are enduring being arrested, being tortured, being beaten, being firebombed, and not really seeing the types of changes that would make that worth it.

And yet the circumstance on the ground for black people outside of the South is not changing at all.

And out of that despair and that frustration with the limitations of a nonviolent movement in a violent, racist society, that is where we see the birth of the Black Panthers.

[Music begins] ♪ You tell me ♪ ♪ that the sun belongs ♪ ♪ To you and should surround you ♪ ♪ But, when I turn to look ♪ ELAINE BROWN: My name is Elaine Brown.

My claim to fame is, as it were And what informs my entire life, at least has, since I was a member of the Black Panther Party is the Black Panther Party.

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES: Overall, the Black Panther's like most other social movements, was dominated by a male hierarchy.

Yet somehow out of that, Elaine Brown, who was both an amazing artist, brilliant strategist.

She ascends and becomes the first, woman chairperson of the Black Panther Party.

ELAINE BROWN: All power to the oppressed people.

Long live the people's revolutionary struggle!

Long live the Minister of Defense!

Free our political prisoners!

All power to the people.

[Applause] ELAINE BROWN: As a matter of fact, in 1970 Huey P. Newton said, the women's liberation movement is a part of our struggle.

We're talking about women fighting for their liberation in terms of how the specifics of women's oppression, My goal is freedom.

Power to determine the destiny of our people so that I'm not dependent on an oppressive force or an enemy force for my life.

You know, somebody said that we captured the imagination of black people.

We did.

People loved the way we looked.

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES: the Black Panthers, were born out of a frustration that the civil rights movement, didn't really have an answer for the reality that black Americans outside of the South had to endure.

KEISHA N. BLAIN: Malcolm X is certainly one of the most significant voices, in black nationalist politics in the United States.

he was always thinking about the connections between the fight for rights in the U.S.

and the fight for liberation in other contexts, maintaining this global racial consciousness.

[Music fades] [Applause] MALCOLM X: And I, for one as a Muslim, believe that the white man is intelligent enough.

If he were made to realize how black people really feel and how fed up we are without that uncompromising sweet talk, KEISHA N. BLAIN: But he's emphasizing that, black people are not powerless, that they can, in fact, challenge these systems ELAINE BROWN: We fought for this stuff.

And the question was, did it have the potential to really bring us freedom?

So the real issue is what do we want?

And we in the Black Panther Party and I say I want freedom now what does it mean?

We said the second sentence was power to determine the destinies of our black communities.

Now what does that mean?

That you have power over the things that affect your life?

KEISHA N. BLAIN: And so we can see Malcolm X and his ideas as perhaps laying the foundation for the Black Power movement ELAINE BROWN: And then you get to the end of Dr.

King's life when he starts talking about economic equality.

How we had to have our own money.

If you're not going to bring us into the job market, if you're not going to give us housing, then we demand that this government provide us with a guaranteed income, and we demand that we get free healthcare.

And we need to march, not on Washington for jobs and freedom, but for guaranteed income and for economic justice and so forth.

Now, that's an important nodal point, because King talks about America being a capitalist country.

he believes that the only way that we will be free is that America has to be, as he said, born again.

And what did he mean?

He said, you can't be cured.

You can only be born again in America has committed so many crimes.

The crime of the murder of the Native people, the killing and enslavement of black people, the oppression of poor people, the exploitation of workers.

That you can't be fixed.

It can't be repaired by going to the lunch counter or voting.

It has to be born again.

Meaning revolutionary change.

Now, that was the dictate of the Black Panther Party.

That the only way black people are going to be free is through a fundamental change.

Now, in the system of capitalism that rose on the back of black slaves.

[Music stops] AJA MONET: Looking back towards World War two and the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.

In turn, this led to racial injustices against Asians living in America.

U.S.

military and political leaders argued that racial ties made Japanese Americans disloyal.

Of those affected by this judgment.

Was a young girl named Yuri Kochiyama.

DIANE FUJINO: I think Yuri's early life actually holds very few clues that she would later develop into a radical activist.

She grows up in this pretty solidly middle class Japanese-American family.

she was shielded from some of the harsher racism at the same time, anti-Japanese racism was there and completely inescapable.

her family could not live in the white section of town.

AKEMI KOCHIYAMA: During World War two.

both my grandparents, like, Japanese-Americans during that time, they were incarcerated.

they were amongst 120,000 Japanese-American citizens, that were unlawfully, displaced, as enemies of the state Over time, this experience, sort of made them learn more about the history of this country.

the way that nonwhite Americans have been discriminated against or treated or put behind walls.

DIANE FUJINO: Her father was one of the two to three thousand Japanese Americans who were rounded up right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and he had just come home from having surgery.

The family didn't know where he was taken.

After a long time, they figure out that he was taken to the Terminal Island, Federal penitentiary, And because he was ill and they didn't give him proper treatment, he ended up dying six weeks later.

NOBUKO MIYAMOTO: My parents, who are Nisei, second generation as she was.

Who came out of camp, were looking for a way to sort of move up and out of the ghetto and to escape the repression that they had lived under.

Where as Yuri was a person who was looking at the world and seeing how she could change it.

DIANE FUJINO: Those experiences of incarceration lay the groundwork.

[Music fades] [Music begins] DIANE FUJINO: But in 1960, she moved to Harlem, not for political reasons, just to get into a bigger apartment.

but then she got involved in more activist organizing.

Yuri in the 50's was following the civil rights movement, on television, And it really impacted her.

MALE VOICE: I'm gratified to note, to progress, in the efforts by White and Negro citizens to end an ugly situation in Birmingham, Alabama.

DIANE FUJINO: She would check the newspaper and see who was speaking locally, and she would invite them to her home for these gatherings, And so she started to meet the civil rights activists, and that transformed her ideas.

NOBUKO MIYAMOTO: Going to her house there are posters all over the kitchen.

Her kitchen table was piled with flyers On the right was, an ironing board It had a telephone on it.

Next to the telephone was a book, and on this notebook were names of people.

So every person that called.

Her number was written down.

She wrote the name and she wrote about the conversation.

So she was really a documentarian of her own life.

It was really set up as a kind of a drop in center, for the movement.

It made it feel like you can be political and still be a normal human being.

It wasn't just that she was organizing demonstrations or organizing events.

She was organizing people all the time.

it gave us courage.

If she could do it, we could do it.

AKEMI KOCHIYAMA: So one of the things that really inspires me about my grandmother and my grandparents and my whole family is their, interest or willingness or commitment to self-education, which they really learned, through their involvement in the civil rights movement and specifically, through their education in the Freedom Schools.

Because what it does is it helps you understand, you know, what's happened to your own people, And that a lot of our experiences overlap and connect to other people's experiences of oppression, but also of liberation.

DIANE FUJINO: In Brooklyn, they were building, a Medical Center, and there were protests to have them hire Black and Puerto Rican construction workers.

They were using their bodies to block the entrance of the construction site.

So the trucks couldn't enter, And all together, over 600 people got arrested.

And Yuri was one of them, And so Yuri ended up in the Brooklyn courthouse, And that's when Malcolm X walks into the courthouse, and that's when she said, you know, I want to congratulate you for what you're doing for your people.

But there's something I disagree with you on.

Your stance on integration.

MALCOLM X: Well, any form of, integration, forced integration, any effort to force integration upon Whites is actually, hypocritical.

It is a form of hypocrisy and what America is trying to do is pass laws to force Whites to pretend that they want Negroes into their schools or into the in their places of employment.

[Music stops] DIANE FUJINO: But he doesn't turn her away.

He invites her in and she starts to attend his organization of Afro-American Unity Liberation School.

through this year long study, every Saturday morning completely transformed her thinking about how racism operates and what the causes of oppression in society.

AKEMI KOCHIYAMA: And Yuri would always say that Malcolm X taught her that, you know, you must know your own history, but you should know other people's history, too, DIANE FUJINO: After Yuri started attending Malcolm's OAAU Liberation School.

she really gained a radical political education.

One of the things that happens at the Liberation School is she hears a tape recording of Fannie Lou Hamer speaking.

FANNIE LOU HAMER: I'm really fed up with covering up stuff.

You know, this stuff have been covered up year after year, and we are beginning now to sweep it out from under the rug.

that the world can see that we are not free in America and that make nobody free here until we all are free.

DIANE FUJINO: It hit something in her and she said, wow, this isn't just aberrant These aren't just exceptional things.

This is really built into the history of this country and to the institutions of this country.

And so for her, incarceration was a tool of state repression against the movements that were fighting for liberation.

And that's why Yuri would write and say, the political prisoners are the heartbeat of struggle.

But when I talk to political prisoners, they would tell me Yuri was the heartbeat of struggle because she was a connector.

NOBUKO MIYAMOTO: She was a lifeline for these people who had nobody else supporting them.

She was writing letters to to, like, two and three in the morning, to political prisoners, which was one of her tasks in the movement.

And that this was a period when people were getting rid of their slave names and taking on their cultural name.

She stopped being Mary and started being called Yuri.

Becoming Muslim, I think, was showing solidarity again with the Black struggle.

[Music fades] [Soft piano music] YURI KOCHIYAMA: The date was February 21st.

[Soft piano music] It was a Sunday.

That whole week, there was a lot of rumors going on in Harlem.

And something might happen to Malcolm.

Those who were invited to speak that day that none of them showed up.

the crowd in there, about 400 people did feel that, something was going wrong.

Two guys got up and said one of yelled, take your hands out of my pocket.

And Malcolm said, okay, brothers, let's break it up.

And everybody was watching.

And the guards themselves moved from their post.

They were supposed to be protecting Malcolm.

But because Malcolm had left the podium, he was just a perfect target to be shot.

And I don't know if there's 2 or 3 men right in front went up and started shooting.

[Gunshots and people screaming] By that time, the whole place was chaotic.

I mean, people were chasing after those two guys, people were yelling and screaming and and mothers who were trying to shield their kids.

the two guys who did the diversion, They shot a few times, you know, not to hit anyone, but just, I think to make the place look even more chaotic.

A young brother pass me, and he seemed to know just where to go or how to get up on the stage.

he went up and I followed him, And at that time, I mean, Malcolm had fallen straight back, and he was on his back, lying on the floor.

and so I just went there and picked up his head and just put it on my lap.

I said please Malcolm please Malcolm.

Stay alive.

[Music fades] NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES: And what they had resulted in was yes, the passage of civil rights laws, but also the assassination of so many black leaders It's like the highs of the civil rights movement were already being crushed within a few years of these landmark laws being passed.

KEISHA N. BLAIN: And then it sent a message that perhaps, the strategy of nonviolent activism might not be as effective.

It represented a moment of rupture where the question was now, well, what do we do differently?

Perhaps it has to be more forceful, because if the person advocating peace and unity and non-violent activism would meet the same fate, ultimately it sends the message that you're going to have to be willing to do whatever it takes.

ELAIN BROWN: We knew that our belief system meant that the people and the people alone are the makings of the revolution, not us.

And our job was to get the people ready for revolution.

And without a vision, as we know, the people will perish.

We say, right.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

People just say something like whatever they see in front of them.

Most of the time, but they don't say, I want to be a revolutionary.

KEISHA N. BLAIN: There's now an opening.

There's a space in which women can emerge as leaders.

They are meaningful moments, nonetheless, because despite circumstances around many of these opportunities, they ultimately come and women, take advantage of the opportunity to showcase their talents and their abilities.

[Music fades] [Applause] [Guitar music begins] AJA MONET: Elaine Bown and many others like her began to realize that affecting change would be most successful by uniting with other coalitions and groups within America, sharing a similar goal of human rights.

DOLORES HUERTA: My name is Dolores Huerta, and I am the president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation.

A founding member of the Feminist Majority and also co-founder of the United Farm Workers.

Well, I got involved in the 40s, when they had brought in a lot of people from Mexico to work in the fields.

So they brought in thousands of people from Mexico, to come and work in the farms.

we formed a farm labor committee, to start helping some of these, Mexican workers.

Well, when you saw the with the way that the workers were being treated, kind of made you angry and realize that that was very unjust.

instead of taking care of them.

They were actually, fed very poorly, paid very poorly and discriminated against.

It was very unjust.

And then at the local community, we had the racial discrimination in the schools in my high school, a lot of racism against the Black and Latino and Asian students, you saw all this all around you.

Growing up you know, the police always harassed us So I always had that resentment that I wanted to change that.

And when I found out that there is a way that you can do this by organizing people and taking direct action that that's the way that you make change.

[Protesters chanting "Huelga!"]

DOLORES HUERTA: At that point in time, farmworkers didn't even have bathrooms in the fields.

They didn't have toilets, they didn't have cold drinking water.

They didn't have rest periods.

They were beating them up.

They were taking shots at them, with firearms.

because a lot of them lived in the labor camps, And what they would do, they shut off the gas, they shut off the water so they couldn't even cook.

one of the precepts or one of the policies and philosophies that we wanted to follow, what the philosophies of Gandhi you know, when the strikes started, we had a lot of support initially, and the strike, it went on for about six months.

You know, this kind of started to peter out.

then we decided to do a march to Sacramento.

And they went through all the farmworker towns, And so as they were going through, were also organizing people and telling them about the union, kind of building the enthusiasm.

so they sort of with 77 of the strikers that did the march.

And then when they got to Sacramento, they had about 10,000 people.

[Crowd noise] We set up a daycare center for all of the women, because women had to take over a lot of the jobs because so many of the men were on the march.

there were very long days.

It was from sunup to sundown.

Literally.

They'd been on strike for a long time.

we weren't winning because they kept bringing in more and more strikebreakers.

And, one of the attorneys with San Francisco, said that have you ever thought of doing a boycott?

[Crowd protesting] So we started a a boycott of the wines and right in the middle, before they got to Sacramento, the company decided to negotiate and bargain.

I was a negotiator for the union.

And so I negotiated that first contract.

For the first time, we were able to get the first contracts ever, for farmworkers and people in the industry, you know, I always had women on my negotiating committee, and they were not used to having women at the other side of the table.

Which made it, I think, kind of awkward for them, and then eventually we were able to pass the laws to, get the right to have unions.

But then we went to an all grape boycott and that was a national organization.

And of course, we started again in California in the Bay area.

The Black Panthers, Elaine Brown and others were with us to support us.

When it came to the black community, the Puerto Rican community, they said, don't worry about it.

We'll take care of it, you know?

When it came to the Bronx, in New York, the Puerto Ricans, the Young Lords and in New York and and again, we had all of the Black activists you know, that boycott turned out to be very successful.

We eventually won because we got 19 million Americans not to buy grapes.

MALE VOICE: Picket lines have been put arou put around supermarkets in 23 major cities and the boycott has received wide political support.

[Crowd chanting] DOLORES HUERTA: Our movements were happening at the same time.

When we were right in the middle of all the strikes and everything that was going on, that's when everything was happening in the South also.

Cesar was doing a fast in Arizona.

In Arizona, they had passed a law that if farm workers went on strike, they could go to jail.

If anybody said boycott anything, you could go to jail.

And so we were trying to get that law overturned.

Their response to me was, well, you can do all of that in California, but not in Arizona.

No Se Puede.

which in English means No you can't, you know, and my response to them was, Si Se Puede.

And so I gave that report.

Then people jumped up and they started clapping.

Si Se Puede!

Si Se Puede!

So I like to say it came kind of came from the universe.

You know.

[Crowd chanting "Sí se puede"] [Music fades in] AJA MONET: We the life, we the chosen.

We the freed migrant rebel lovers.

We the word workers.

We the shoeless and standing tall.

We the houseless in housing hearts.

We the teachers still students.

We the farmers in the field.

We the shamans being healed.

Revolution is not a spectator sport.

Silence is a noise too.

[Music fades] NOBUKO MIYAMOTO: During this period, we on the East Coast were able to meet activists from the West Coast and realized, oh my God, we're a movement.

We're not just these smaller groups in our own communities.

So it was quite natural to stand up against, the United States who were killing people who look like us, who look like our family.

So Yuri really opened the door for me, I think she looked at everyone as a potential revolutionary.

I think she looked at people and thinking about, you must want to make a better world.

AKEMI KOCHIYAMA: And that we can connect with each other in many ways.

And I think, leaned into this idea of building bridges is that she really felt like polarization was sort of the, the real big evil taking away people's power by separating them, right, and creating divisions between people who could be in solidarity and could be working together, NOBUKO MIYAMOTO: But she also saw things within the context of other people's struggles, other people's sacrifices, other people's problems.

And I think that's what Yuri reminds us this ordinary person who who did extraordinary things.

DIANE FUJINO: Always thinking of the individual as part of the movement.

Dialectically bound together.

And I think she would say that's how we're going to make change in the world.

[Music transitions to hip hop] AKEMI KOCHIYAMA: I was approached by young activists, and they came to me with this idea that we should do a mural dedicated to Yuri and Malcolm in Harlem, to honor her.

the organizers really wanted it to be designed by the community.

Because we watched these young people really be empowered, you know, by, by learning this, through the process, we also involved in them and actually painting the mural.

they have a great sense of ownership So they protect this wall.

the wall continues to be a place for gathering for many different community organizations and different kinds of cultural events.

It's been really beautiful both experience and be part of, you know, art making as a part of activism always and connecting, to culture and just presenting that and celebrating that and people enjoying each other's culture as a way to sort of connect.

[Music stops] AJA MONET: Concurrently, in the heart of West Oakland, Elaine Brown has fought to establish a new sanctuary.

The Black Panther.

This five story sustainable marvel offers 79 units of 100% affordable housing.

Reclaiming a neighborhood once defined by disinvestment and turning it into a model for community wealth.

ELAINE BROWN: The whole idea is, for us to create these businesses because this is a food desert.

But what's important is to build a sort of foundation of community wealth.

I want everyone in this building to know you are a worthy being.

And most people realize now that they can do other things.

They're going back to school because they don't have to worry about rent.

They don't have to live in a car and have to live in a shelter.

Environment changes everything.

I think a lot of the people here never imagined living like this with not only beautiful place, but respect and assistance and understanding.

And so when you have a resident manager like ours that I'm not above you I've been through what you've been through.

There's nothing you can tell me other than your particular story that's going to change that I'm going to look down on you because I am you.

And that's what I tell people here too.

I said, I yeah, I built this building.

You can celebrate me, put my name on on the street if you want to, but at the end of the day, I'm you.

You are me.

And I want for you what I want for me.

[Conga drums begin] AJA MONET: The Black Panther building stands as a modern marvel of what the community can build for itself.

Yet just beyond its doors, the systems of control have evolved into something even more pervasive.

Dolores Huerta looks at the national landscape and sees the return of a shadow the movement has fought for 60 years.

DOLORES HUERTA: And then, now we have new issues with authoritarianism police control.

And when I say that when we look at what's happening now with ICE raids and the prisons that are being opened up and warehouses being turned into prison.

That we've got another big issue right now, which is fascism, authoritarianism that we have to fight.

When you really want to make change that you to start, with the people.

Okay.

And but in order to, make the people understand that they have the power you have to have a lot of patience, and you have to explain to people, and you have to show them, and once the people understand that, they will join in you know.

and they'll dedicate their time, to do this.

AJA MONET: As mothers raise children, imparting knowledge and wisdom.

Those children go on to continue the lifelong efforts of restoring freedom to the people.

Today, Camila Chavez, daughter to Dolores Huerta has become the co-founder and executive director of the Dolores Huerta Foundation.

CAMILA CHAVEZ: So the foundation is a community based organization.

And our main mission is to teach people that they have power.

We coach them to become their own advocates for the improvements that they'd like to see in their communities and in their schools.

the values that, we've learned from Dolores and that guide our organization are those of, Si Se Puede, understanding that the communities that are most impacted are the ones that have the solutions What I would want people to recognize about the power of community organizing is the importance of the one on one relationships, that people really take the time to build relationships to be with, you know, one another, you know, on an individual basis, so that we can learn about each other, build that trust, and move forward with our collective goals.

AJA MONET: At the intersection of uniting American farmworkers through enacting policy, there are those today that push to dismantle oppression that is structured into our daily lives.

Leah Thomas, an intersectional environmentalist, fosters conversation among young people to encourage harmony within our communities.

LEAH THOMAS: Being a revolutionary is being someone that's future focused and someone who's deeply rooted in radical imagination.

I would say a lot of people think that being an activist is only focusing on the systems that we want to dismantle.

But I would say that's part of the work, and more of the work is actually focusing on how can we coalition build to build a better future.

Environmental justice is the belief that everyone, regardless of race, class, geography, where they're from etc.

has equal access to a safe and clean environment.

I want people to understand you can have a different theory of change, and as long as you have the same values and you have the same goal, you can Rainbow Coalition build with other people.

And we don't have to have infighting within our movement spaces or virtue signaling, because I think I learned that from the Black Panthers.

They made education accessible for everybody.

They didn't keep radical language to themselves and say, this is only for us, because if that were the case, they would only be wanting to liberate themselves, but in reality they wanted to liberate everyone.

ELAINE BROWN: We want an education to teach our people the true nature of our oppression.

And our motto was teaching our children not what to think, but how to think.

Let me give you the history of your people so that you understand that so that you won't grow up not knowing who the hell Fannie Lou Hamer is, or not knowing anything about slavery and understanding your relationship to it and our relationship to it.

KEISHA BLAIN: Those who have radical imagination may be called, idealists or may be called somewhat, delusional because they're imagining the possibility of a world in which every person has full rights and freedom.

A world in which no one is left out.

A world in which there is equality and fairness.

And these might seem as utopian visions, but I think part of this notion of radical imagination is being able to fight for the things that that seem impossible.

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES: What set them apart was, again, an understanding of the intersectional nature of oppression that often times, men who lead social movements, are trying to take down one hierarchy while maintaining another.

So it is sitting at those intersections that allows you to understand, that my liberation is tied to yours.

It doesn't have to look just like yours.

But I can't be for liberation if I'm also allowing the oppression of other groups.

I think about, Audre Lorde and she says, I don't have to even understand your oppression to fight for you.

It is just acknowledging that there are multiple ways that we are being oppressed, and we have an obligation to fight all of them.

We're a nation that was founded both on the idea of freedom and the practice of genocide and slavery.

We believe that we are a society of our exceptions.

We believe social progress is the normative state of America when actually regression is a normative state of America, there's always going to be a fight.

And Lord knows, I wish there wasn't, but I think us being honest about that, that prepares us for the work we have to do.

ELAINE BROWN: And so even though I don't see it, I still have that dream.

And it keeps me motivated.

And I think that's the importance of imagination.

[Music fades] [Bassline begins] ♪ Somewhere ♪ ♪ Somewhere there is an incorruptable spirit ♪ ♪ Re-remembering a time ♪ ♪ when we voted with the thoughts in our mind ♪ ♪ It begins with you ♪ ♪ It begins with you ♪ ♪ loving you enough to love me ♪ ♪ as I am you ♪ ♪ We are the country's consciousness rising ♪ ♪ And we are only as powerful ♪ ♪ as our vote ♪ ♪ made in the flesh ♪ ♪ A voice ♪ ♪ a voice bravely raising up ♪ ♪ Reverberating ♪ ♪ new visions ♪ [Music builds] [Music fades] [Film projector sounds] [Music begins] ♪ Have you ever stood ♪ ♪ in the darkness of night ♪ ♪ Screaming silently ♪ ♪ You're a man ♪ ♪ Have you ever hoped ♪ ♪ that a time would come ♪ ♪ when your voice ♪ ♪ could be heard ♪ ♪ in a noon-day sun ♪ ♪ Have you waited so long ♪ ♪ 'Til your unheard song ♪ ♪ has stripped away ♪ ♪ your very soul ♪ ♪ Well then believe it ♪ ♪ my friend ♪ ♪ That the silence can end ♪ ♪ We'll just have to get guns ♪ ♪ and be men ♪ ♪ Has a cry to live ♪ ♪ When your brain is dead ♪ ♪ Made your body tremble.

so ♪ ♪ And have unseen chains ♪ ♪ Of too many years ♪ ♪ Hurt you so bad ♪ ♪ 'til you can't shed tears ♪ ♪ Have so many vows ♪ ♪ From so many mouths ♪ ♪ Made you know ♪ ♪ that words are just words ♪ ♪ Well then believe it ♪ ♪ my friend ♪ ♪ That this silence ♪ ♪ will end we'll just ♪ ♪ have to get guns and be men ♪ ♪You know that dignity ♪ ♪not just equality ♪ ♪ is what makes a man a man ♪ ♪ And so you laugh at laws ♪ ♪ passed by a silly lot ♪ ♪ That tell you to give thanks ♪ ♪ For what you've already got ♪ ♪ And you can't go on ♪ ♪ with this time-worn song ♪ ♪ That just won't ♪ ♪ change the way you feel ♪ ♪ Well you, believe it ♪ ♪ my friend ♪ ♪ That this silence can end ♪ ♪ We'll just have to get guns ♪ ♪ and be men ♪ ♪ You don't want to think ♪ ♪ You just want a drink ♪ ♪ Both the sweet wine and the gall ♪ ♪ You've been burning inside ♪ ♪ For so long a while ♪ ♪ 'Till your old time grin ♪ ♪ is now crazed man's smile ♪ ♪ And the goal's so clear ♪ ♪ And the time so near ♪ ♪ You'll make it or ♪ ♪ You'll break the plow ♪ ♪ Well then, believe it my friend ♪ ♪ That this silence will end ♪ ♪ We'll just have to ♪ ♪ get guns and be men ♪ ♪ Yes It's time you know ♪ ♪ who you really are ♪ ♪ and not try whitewash ♪ ♪ the truth ♪ ♪ You're a man you see ♪ ♪And a man must be ♪ ♪ whatever he'll be ♪ ♪ Or he won't be free ♪ ♪ If he's bound up tight ♪ ♪ He'll hold back the night ♪ ♪ And there won't be no light for day ♪ ♪ So you'll believe it, my friend ♪ That this silence can end ♪ ♪ We'll just have to get guns ♪ ♪ And be men ♪