THE INHERITANCE

[Music] [Music] [Music] Don't you cry. Go a sleepy little day. [Music] >> Today is born out of yesterday. And there's no birth without pain. [Music] Flesh [Music] >> spring 191, >> 16 years old, coming to America with five words of English. >> My name is Zena Gurvich. Impossible language. I'll never learn it. My name is Zena Gurovich. My name is In the old country, I work like an animal. And even before my children are born, the mark is on them. Animal. Before God, I swear my children will not live as I have lived. [Music] >> Rained. Freedom is a hard one thing. You've got to work for it, fight it day and night for it. And every generation got to win it again. Pass it on to your children. Mother, pass it on to your children, brother. You got to work for it. Fight for it day and night for it. Pass it on to your children. Pass it on. >> New arrivals scheduled for examination will present themselves with their documents. Find the line matching the letter on your tag. >> Name? >> A room bial. >> Place of birth? >> Odessa. How much money you got? >> No, understand. >> Money, Diero. How much money? >> We've got 5,000 to process today. So, let's keep these lines moving. You got exactly 2 minutes to ask him 32 questions and finish health inspection. Keep an eye out for TB. We're getting a lot of it lately. >> Name? >> Casima Sinvich. >> Spell it. >> Please skip it. We'll make it simp. [Music] Please God, let nothing go wrong. Let them not notice the baby's runny nose. Let them take us into America. [Music] Why do you keep asking me what it's going to be like? I told you a thousand times. The streets pay with gold and the houses all marble. Yeah. Yeah. Even a toilet. [Music] I Is this a country? Golden America. Learn, study, pay attention. Keep your eyes open. You hear? This is golden America, where millionaires grow on trees like little apples. [Music] around around. The music is dreamy. It's peaches and creamy. Oh, don't let my feet touch the ground. [Music] I Is this a country? As true as I'm standing here, one family, Vanderbilt, has got seven houses on Fifth Avenue. Also, in case they need a little fresh air, a dump on Long Island and a hole in the wall at Newport, not to mention a 60 room shack in North Carolina. I read in the paper, just to take care of the grounds, they spend more than the whole Department of Agriculture. So, let it be a lesson. Save your money. Okay. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] >> Official New York City housing survey 1905. We find it difficult to convey conditions in the new immigrant neighborhoods. Darkness and dampness and dirt. Dirt and discomfort and disease. Dtheria and death. >> Malberry Street. 17 of us in four rooms. Uncle Antonio from Naples. at Bianca and the kids sleeping in the parlor. If I ever get a boyfriend, where can we go to hold hands? Into the park with the pigeons. My dear, there are certain rules of etiquette one simply does not question. A lady does not show her ankle or raise her voice. If unmarried, a girl must be accompanied by a chaperone. A female relative, a maiden aunt perhaps, is considered quite satisfactory. Naturally, the best and safest thing to do is to stay at home and help mother about the house. >> 12 hours a day. Mama makes 50 cents. I make a dime. Louis makes a nickel. [Applause] Laying down track for the westbound train. stacking up timber in the state of Maine. Digging out coal in the West Virginia hills. Hammering steel in the Pittsburgh Mills. [Music] Immigrants from Austria and Italy. Immigrants from Ria on the Baltic Sea. Greeneyed Slovacs, blue-eyed Swedes, Irishmen from Limrich, Englishmen from Leeds. [Music] Six day week and a 12-hour day and it's welcome boys to the USA. Dollar a day for a factory hand and it's welcome ladies to the promised land. [Music] [Music] Immigrants and the sons of immigrants, putting down roots, hanging on, stubborn as the tree that pushes its way up through the rock. Acrobats and clowns, rascals and lovers, builders and dreamers, leaving their signature on the cities. From Bratislava and Budapest, from Calabria and County Cork, they came dreaming of gold in the streets. And finding no miracles, they made their own. The miracle of friendship, the miracle of laughter, the miracle of the generations, the miracle of learning. Listen, you want to hear the presidents? George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, >> Professor Genius, what else did you learn? >> Daniel Webster, quote, justice is the great interest of man on earth. >> From your mouth to God's ears. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Golden America half dream and half nightmare. When I die, don't bear me at all. Hang me up on the splis. I got the blues. I got the blues. I got the winds cotton blues. I got the blues. I got the blues. I got the cotton blues. [Music] I know. Tom Watson got like hell. 2 million children in the mills and the mines. 6 million grown-ups unemployed. >> Why hire a man for a dollar when you can hire a kid for a dime? >> I was taught in my youth that it was the height of vulgarity to discuss money. A professor in Chicago came up with a few statistics. >> An American family cannot adequately survive on less than $900 a year. The average working man earns about 400. >> When the union's inspiration through the workers blood shall run, there can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun. But what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one? For the union makes us strong [Music] forever. [Music] Forever. >> The garment workers of New York keeping alive a tradition going back to the Philadelphia printers who formed a union before Washington was president. immigrants and the sons of immigrants carrying on the heritage of the Boston Carpenters who fought for the 10-hour day while Missouri was still Indian territory. [Music] >> Hold the forward [Music] victory. As spokesman for the mine owners, I assure you the rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for not by the labor agitator but by the Christian men to whom God in his infinite wisdom is given control of the property interests of this country. >> Freedom doesn't come [Music] down rained. [Music] Freedom is a hard one thing. You've got to work for it, fight for it, day and night for it. And every generation got to win it again. Pass it on to your children. Mother, pass it on to your children. Brother came to Chicago. Green off the boat. 1910. Got myself a job at a men's clothing shop. Heart shaper and marks. Sit at the machine shaking in your boots. Scared of being fired for talking, sneezing, looking at the foreman crosseyed. Busy season. Get up before dawn. Come home in the dark. The children's faces you don't look on except when they're sleeping. And then the slack season speed up. You can go crazy with the speed up. Turning out more more for the same money. [Applause] Just like this, all of a sudden, the foreman announces they're cutting the peace rate for seeming pants. >> You got a wife and kids to support. You keep your mouth shut. >> Lucy, you're going to just sit there and take it? Not me. I'm not taking it. I'm walking out. Sure. It's all right for them. A handful of girls. I got kids to feed. >> They warned us. Walk out and you're blacklisted. Finished in Chicago. >> Why doesn't the union do something? >> The so-called union, my boy, is strictly for the cutters, the aristocrats. They're not interested in green horns. >> What am I doing in here taking over their work? I ought to be out there with them. >> What do we do? >> I don't know what you're going to do. I know what I'm going to do. Out. I'm walking out. >> Do you hear? Do you hear the latest? >> 3,000 out. Six more shops out. >> 18,000. 35,000. >> You hear? 40,000 out. >> Heard a rumor the union's looking to make a deal under the table and sell us down the river. [Music] I'm as girl as can be and I've never done them harm that I can see still on me. They put a van and they throw me in the can. They go wild simply wild over me. >> Four months of broken heads and empty stomachs. Four months out in the freezing street. Four months standing together, standing solid. >> I see Charlie out there walking in the line. Up comes a foreman. Gives him a punch and yells, "Go home, troublemaker." So Charlie says, "I got my rights." Rights. They gave him a bullet in the head. They gave him. [Music] How do you do, sir? My name is Jane Adams. I'm a social worker. I wonder, Mr. Shaner, how long it's been since you saw with your own eyes the conditions under which these people worked for you? >> So I went down to my factory and I looked and then I wasn't surprised they were on strike. I was only surprised they waited so long. >> Sher is willing to arbitrate grievances and wage demands. >> What does Hillman say? All we want is to be treated as human beings, not machines. Arbitration is the first step. >> All right. So, they got arbitration. They got a little security at heart shaper and marks. >> It still leaves the rest of us right back where we started. >> You think this is the end? Take it from me. This is only the beginning. Something in the wind blowing east from Chicago. A restless murmur running through the shops. Something being born. A beginning. A hope. New York. 1912. Heart of the men's clothing market. 60,000 vest makers and button hole makers, pressers and pants makers, cutters and tailor. Slapped in jail by the police. bailed out by a tough little labor lawyer named Fierella LaGuardia. >> You hear? We got a settlement. A 53-hour week. >> A big present. They gave us ice in the winter. >> Listen, whatever you get, you have to fight for it. If I am wrong, if my information is mistaken, please correct me, which I will appreciate. Thank you. Something in the wind. Something struggling to be born. Baltimore strike and sellout. Rochester. Sellout and heartbreak. [Music] The union's having a convention. Nashville, Tennessee. >> Why Nashville? The biggest locals are New York, Chicago, Baltimore. >> That's the reason. We've got complaints. So, they're making it tough for us to get out there. >> So, why Nashville? Why not Alaska? Beg borrow somehow scrape together the money for train fair. >> Nash all out for Nash. >> Locals from New York, Boston, Rochester, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Baltimore are the link with the dues and will not be seated. >> We were all on strike. We did not need. So how can we pay sues in a balcony have no right to speak? >> Baltimore is still out on strike. Brother in a balcony is out of order. The cargo insist that the brother in the balcony be heard. >> Delegate from Chicago is out of order. >> Listen, we just came in from Nashville. Chicago walked out of the convention. Yeah. and and New York and Baltimore, >> Boston, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. >> 75% of the membership walked out. >> Really? Does it mean holding their own convention >> here? We're setting up our own union. [Music] It'll be an outlaw outfit. won't even be in the air for Sydney. You're out of your mind. Staking your head on a wild gamble. >> In the month of December, in the year 1914, they gathered at Webster Hall and they took the gamble. It was our dream to give security to our members. Security within the framework of liberty, of individual freedom. Lincoln said, "A nation cannot exist half slave and half free. Neither can a man. We cannot exist free politically but slaves industrially. >> Dear brother, we just formed an organizing committee for the amalgamating of clothing workers out here in Milwaukee. Two French button hole makers, three Jewish cutters, a Siberian, a Bohemian, two Italian pants makers, a Lithuanian [ __ ] two Poles, a Swede, and a Hungarian. >> Starting with nothing with empty pockets and a barrel of hope. organizing New York and Chicago, Wisconsin and New Jersey, Baltimore and Boston, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Montreal, Toronto, Pennsylvania. Dear Brother Hillman, maybe you can come to our assistance. We had a little strike down here in Philadelphia. Our business agent got thrown in jail. I haven't got to buy postage stamps, much less pay the fine. Worse comes to worse, don't worry. I'll hack my overcoat. Listen, I'm a boss, so don't quote me. Tell you the God's truth, the union is the best thing ever happened in this industry. We've got arbitration. We can come together like human beings, set standards, set rates in a civilized manner. You know what I mean? Since we went union, we never had a strike. >> January 1st, 1915. Special to Mccclure's magazine. Midway through the Wilson administration, there are indications that the nation is seeing the beginnings of a new freedom. A weakening of the grip of monopolies by the passage of the Corrupt Practices Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, Workman's Compensation, Child Labor Laws. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Immigrants [Music] and the sons of immigrants. Fishermen from Nantucket. Factory hands from the Lower East Side. Farm boys from Arkansas. >> Goodbye M. Goodbye Paw. Goodbye mule with the old hehaw. I may not know what the war is about, but I bet by gosh I'll soon find out. I'll bring you a hun and a Kaiser, too. And that's about all one fell can do. I may not know what the wars about, but I shall soon find out. Oh my darling, don't you fear. I'll bring you a gun for a souvenir. [Music] US Army dead and missing 130,500. Wounded 234,300. US steel profits two billion in the backwash of war, depression and a rising hysteria. In a single year, 61 murders by lynching. Revolution in Russia touching off panic at home. Victims of the Palmer raid. their houses ransacked without search warrants. 3,000 foreignb born arrested, denied lawyers, held without charges for 3 months in Pittsburgh and Gary, Indiana. It was the 12-hour day. Take it or leave it. And you better take it if you know it's good for you. Tell me, what is a vigilante man? What is a vigilante man? Does he carry a club and a gun in his hand? [Music] >> Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America to AFL. Enclosed. Find our contribution. $100,000 for the relief of the Steel Strikers. We know that this is only the beginning of one of the greatest attacks ever directed against American labor. >> 1920. >> In six short years, we built ourselves one of the strongest unions in the country. In New York, the 44-hour week and a working machinery of arbitration. >> So, the employers decide it's time to wreck the union, come up with a plan to set back the clock, bring back the sweat shop, and when we turn it down, >> lockout, they got it all figured. Shut down the machines, lock the doors, get a court injunction against picketing, sit back and starve us out. The judge just came back into the courtroom. He's getting ready to read the decision. >> What happens? >> We get thrown in a cling for picking and that's what happens. >> Supreme Court of the state of New York is now in session. The honorable justice van presides. >> The court must stand at all times as the representative of capital of the captains of industry. Injunction granted. >> While the employers may succeed in getting injunctions, they succeed in nothing. As long as they think they can ship customers injunctions instead of pans, let them go ahead. >> Hang on. Sit tight and hang on. If we crack, it means the end of the union. The open shop again, the 7-day weekend, the 12-hour day. Starvation, slums, crime, everything that is rotten, everything that is inhuman. Your organization must ask great sacrifices. We ask you to walk instead of spending a nickel carfare. Your lives depend on it. Your future, the future of your children. We will take care that there is not a single house without bread. We won't give you meat, but your brothers and sisters in Chicago, Rochester, Baltimore won't let you starve. >> What? With the starting in the sweat shop at the age of 11, somehow I never got time to go to Harvard. So at the age of 47, I'm in lockout college. American history, public speaking, labor history, even art classes. >> We volunteered to go down there and arrange entertainment. I don't believe the world has such children anywhere as the East Side children. They took our modest program and transformed it with their magic. I sat there thinking, "Oh, what if the business of society were making children like this instead of profits?" And we hung on, hung on for six long months. And we won. We did it. We did it. We hung on and we won. >> The 20s. >> A chicken in every pot and a Tim Lizzy in every garage. >> Keep cool with Koolage. >> Cancel the child labor laws. >> In the White House the other day. Now, what did Koolage say? And Patrick Henry Henry made a speech, a famous speech when he told them liberty or black bottom. Crazy words, crazy tune. All that cocoon was vod. >> Believe you me, the 20s isn't all vod. For a clothing worker, it's still a seasonal business. Layoffs, unemployment, behind with the rent, payments due on the radio, go to the bank for a loan, they ask you for security. Listen, if I had security, I wouldn't be there in the first place. My hands are my security. >> As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men. For they are women's children, and we mother them again. Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes. Hearts starve as well as bodies. Give us bread, but give us roses. >> The amalgamated pioneering slum clearance. Putting up the first cooperative low rent houses, founding a bank where a working man can get a loan on the security of his labor, setting up the only unemployment insurance program in the nation. And that was also the 20s. Up, boys. The sky's is the limit. AT&T 303, US Steel 255, >> 23 Scadoo. I love my wife, but oh, you kid. >> US Steel 313. >> Hey, what's wrong with the market? >> US Steel 300. US Steel 152, US Steel 60. Who cares if the sky cares to fall in the sea? Who cares what banks fail in young? [Music] President Hoover assured reporters today that quote the fundamental business of the country is on a sound and prosperous basis. The Secretary of the Treasury announced, quote, I can guarantee that there is nothing in the situation to be concerned about. >> It's a mighty hard road that these poor hands of hold. My poor feet has traveled a hot dusty road. At the edge of your cities, you will see us. And then we come with the dust and we're gone with the wind. Fed up with being unemployed, tired of being hungry. 20,000 doughboys went down to Washington to demand the veterans bonus we had coming to us. Herbert Hoover sick the army on us. Chase us out of the capital. >> Let me tell you, mister, we ain't taking it no more. There's going to be some changes made. California came here to nominate a president. California 44 votes for Roosevelt. [Applause] There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rule with destiny. [Music] [Applause] The New Deal beginning to roll. A running river of social legislation. The CCC and the WPA bringing jobs to 9 million unemployed. Fair labor standards law setting minimum wages and maximum hours. Child labor laws passed again. The TVA bringing light to the dark valleys. The social security act partially inspired by the amalgamated pattern providing unemployment and old age insurance. The Wagner Labor Relations Act. Employees shall have the right to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing. >> And until you organize and express yourself, the politicians will vote for a bill in Congress that lengthens the working hours, that puts in a starvation period, and abolishes the prevailing wage. That's what the politicians will do unless you make your wants and your rights known. And you can't do it unless you organize. The workers of this country want representation. They want organization. They want participation. They want protection. They want employment. And they're going to have those things through the leadership and the instrumentality of this new labor movement that you're fought. >> Instead of a thousand craft unions segregating the workers, the CIO meant one big union for every major industry. Organize the unorganized. Puddlers and furnacemen in the steel mills. Deck hands, stokers, oilers aboard the merchant ships, rouseabouts and riggers in the oil fields. zinc miners, lead miners, copper miners, rubber workers, electrical workers. The amalgamated organizing cotton garment workers in Pennsylvania, New England, and the prairie states, organizing laundry workers, cleaners and dyers, retail clerks, providing the manpower and the money to organize a textile workers union. Now, if you want higher wages, let me tell you what to do. You got to talk to the workers in the shop with you. You got to build you a union. Got to make it strong. But if you all stick together, boys. Don't be long. You get shorter hours, better working conditions, vacations with pay, take your kid to the seashore. It ain't quite this simple. So, I better explain just why you got to ride on the union train. Cuz if you wait for the boss to raise your pay, we'll all be awaiting until judgment day, we'll all be buried. Gone to heaven. St. Pet will be the straw balls stand. Now you know you're underpaid, but the boss says you ain't. He speeds up the work till you're about to faint. You may be down and out, but you ain't beaten. You can pass out a leaflet and call him eating. Talk it over. >> Which side are you on? Which side are you on? >> My daddy was a minor and I'm a minor son. And I'll stick with the union till this whole fight is won. Which side are you on? Which side are you on? Which side are you on? Which side are you on? >> We have been down here for 5 days. What do you say, boys? >> This land is your land. This land is my land. From California to the New York Island. From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters. This land was made for you and me. As I went walking that river of highway, I saw above me that endless skyway. I saw below me that golden valley. This land was made for you and me. This land is your land. This land is my land. From California to the New York Island. From the Redwood Forest to the Gulfream. [Applause] Memorial Day 1937. [Applause] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] 600 arrested, 60 sent to the hospital, 30 bleeding from gunshot wounds, including one woman and three children, 10 dead, shot in the back. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Flint, Michigan, 1937. [Music] [Applause] >> When they tie a can to a man, >> sit down. Sit down. >> When they give him the sack, they'll take him back. >> Sit down. Sit down. Sit down and take a seat. Sit down and rest. Sit down. You got to be sit down. Sit down. >> When they smile and say no raising patience, sit down. Sit down. >> When you want the boss to come across, sit down. Sit down. Sit down. Just take a seat. Sit down. Sit down. Sit down. [Music] We sat down in the auto plants for 44 days and we came up with a union contract in the men's clothing field. Victory industrywide collective bargaining bringing order out of chaos. Auto organized CIO steel organized textile organized rubber oil copper merchant marine furniture workers glass workers. Leather workers packing house workers and wood workers. This land is your land. This land is my California. [Music] >> In 3 years, 5 million Americans organized CIO. [Music] [Applause] [Music] >> 1938. >> Forget your troubles and just get happy. You better chase all your cares away. Sing hallelujah. Come on, get happy. Get ready for the judgment day. The sun is shining. Come on, get happy. The Lord is waiting to take your hand. Shout hallelujah. Come on, get happy. We're going to the promised land. We're heading across the river. Wash your sins away in the tide. It's all so peaceful on the other side. Forget your troubles and just get happy. You better chase all your cares away. Shout hallelujah. Come on, get happy. Get ready for the judgment day. >> Berlin. Chancellor Adolf Hitler told reporters today that aside from rightful claims to Austria and Czechoslovakia, Germany has no territorial ambitions. He claimed that all accusations to the contrary are fabrication circulated by an international Jewish conspiracy. Poland 1939 [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, [Music] France, Yugoslavia, Greece. December 7th, 1941. [Music] Pearl Harbor, a present from Tokyo. [Music] In the African hills, on the bleak islands of the Pacific, we got the message that the days when the United States could sit isolated behind its oceans were ended forever. The message written in fire that from now on, for better or for worse, it was one world. The battle line ran from the Philippines to Ewima, from Anzio to Normandy, from Elamagne to Stalenrad. The battle line ran through Pittsburgh and Detroit and Norfolk and San Francisco. And yet, in the midst of war, in the 1942 elections, only a third of America's 80 million eligible voters went to the polls. Franklin Roosevelt, the White House, Washington. to Sydney Hillman. Dear Sydney, I can think of nothing more important in the years to come than the continuing political education of the people who do the jobs of this land. It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for winning a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever known before. >> The man dies, but the dream endures. We have accepted, so to speak, a second bill of rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all, regardless of station or race or creed. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age and sickness and accidents and unemployment. Finally, the right to a good education. All of these rights spell security. The clock ticks away the inexurable hours. Over the horizon, the days vanish like wild birds. The sky announces a new season. Pinned upon the drawing board are plans for the destruction of pianos and violets. Lightning flashes among the constellations and yet the human spark burns on. Thunder rolls above the clouds and yet the small persistent voice of man prevails. At the age of 83, I look back to see the changes that have taken place. I remembered that when Mr. Helman had just arrived from Chicago. I then said to a friend of mine and I says, "He looks like a young fellow, but I would take my hat off to him if he can take these wolves and make them see the light and and create a business where individuals could make a livelihood and do away with that slavery that existed all through the years. [Applause] You know, I can go back to a time with my pop may rest in peace. You know, we wiped together and he broke me in. I used to remember when he broke me in. We used to work next to each other and he was a strict man. And when he was out a day, just one day, there was no pay. And when he had no pay, there was no food in the house cuz we always ate from the button holes from the clothing line. At that time, a boss was able to walk over the machine, tear off the cotton, and kick you out. And that was it. When things got slowed, the boss used to go around and cut prices. And we used to work cheaper. You had no standard of of uh conditions. You had no standard of garments. You had no standard of labor. It was a doggy dog. And benefits, we had none. >> Today, as long as I stay in the Amalgamated, I've got my benefits. I can move to any union shop in the country, New York, Ohio, or Oscaloosa. Keep my medical care. Keep my pension. >> Who ever thought that this trade would have 3 weeks vacation? Who ever thought we'd have legal holidays? Who ever thought we'd see a business agent can walk into a shop and tell a boss, "You can't fire this man because he's old or because he's sick. You've got to keep them." Those things you didn't see years ago. >> And who ever thought in this trade when a man reached 65 he could retire because never did we think that we see it in this trade. A man used to work until he dropped by the machine and after he dropped he had to hope his family would support him. I can remember when a man got sick. He was broke. Today we've got the union uh hospitalization on x-ray psychiatric right down the line. You know, today I come into a shop and I look around and I see the younger people of girls and boys and I say to myself, do these people know what we fought for? Do they know how hard it was to get the conditions we've got? Do they know what a union actually means? Do they know what they have to go through to keep the conditions they have? Do they know that they must sacrifice to keep the conditions? >> They call each other brothers and sisters at a union meeting. Do they know that a union brother and a union sister means sacrifice? >> If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning. I'd hammer in the evening. All over this land, I'd hammer out danger. I'd hammer out a warning. The biggest thing we have to sell the workers in the south on through our union is dignity. But the thing that's most important to them down there is dignity. the right to stand up and grieve. Uh the right to know that they can take a stand when they're mistreated and shot. You go into a town that's anti-UN. We try to make contact as quietly as possible. Many times we refuse lodging accommodations in motel and hotels. We do get into a place sometime many of our phone calls are monitored. I've myself have been in front of a plant in a southern community. Had city officials, police, and sheriff groups chas us away from the plant, taken out of a car, rope around my neck, pulled up on my tiptoes, and told, "If you ever come back here again, we'll kill you." Many times a worker will say, "I'm for you. I'm going to vote for you. I'll sign a union card, but uh don't park your car close to our house because the boss will know we've been to see you and I may get fired tomorrow. It takes a lot of courage for a worker to sign a union card. But the workers have got courage. A lot of them have. [Music] >> If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning. I'd hammer in the evening. over this land. I hammer of freedom. I hammer of justice. I hammer between my brothers and sisters all this [Applause] [Music] as it is. They say we're not ready. That's the first thing you hear. He's not ready for it. How can I give him something he's not ready for? But I am ready. I have been ready. But maybe you don't recognize it. Maybe you think I'm still a child or something. I'm not a child. I'm grown. I have children. >> And I'm woring about them like you're woring about yours. >> You got to work for it. Fight for it day and night for it. >> And every generation got to win it again. [Music] Sometimes I get thinking, "If only I could protect her from all the troubles in this world, discrimination, poverty, war." But the best I can do is let her learn to be strong, to stand up and fight for a decent life. That's her inheritance. >> The seed is planted and the seed flowers. The roots take hold. The stubborn tree forces its way through the rock. immigrants and the sons of immigrants handing down their inheritance, creating out of their dreams and their anguish and their songs the face of America. [Music] Freedom doesn't come like a bird on the wing. Doesn't come down like the summer rain. Freedom. Freedom is a hard one thing. You've got to work for it, fight it day and night for it. And every generation got to win it all again. Oh, heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music]