Original subtitles

Economic justice is actually having the opportunity,

a real opportunity.

How do you create generational wealth?

How do you teach others to create generational wealth?

The racial wealth gap, it's not a million-dollar problem.

It's not a billion-dollar problem.

It's a trillion-dollar problem.

It's been a never-ending story.

It is a challenge when you can't put gas in your car,

when you can't buy food, you can't pay your light bill,

or you can't pay your rent.

Life is going on, life is happening, you know,

and you're trying to put a bandaid and stop the bleeding

on the effects of generational poverty.

Investments and resources that are meant

to get to these communities haven't gotten to them.

There has to be economic warriors in the community

to create economic justice.

Hey, what's going on man? Everybody good?

My name is Arlo Washington,

and my purpose in life is to advance equity

and create opportunities and build the community.

Just for the sake of teaching you to parting,

I want you to do this right here.

Now watch this. Watch this right here.

So we'll go a fourth of a inch in.

Go a fourth of a inch into the eyebrow.

Take the point of your comb. You put it on the scalp.

We'll take the other hand right here,

and we'll put it back here in the nape area.

And then we'll just take that point of that comb

and just keep it on the scalp all the way

'til you feel that point with your index finger.

When you feel that point with your index finger,

just slide your finger up the comb that way

and pull it out to the side.

That's one side, all right?

So, but you really want a good, straight line,

so you can always go back and do it again.

You just need to put a little bit more pressure

on the scalp when you're going through.

So I'm gonna take that and clamp that up.

Yeah, there we go, appreciate that.

So for the first couple of weeks, this is all y'all doing.

Six sections, on, two, three, four, five, six.

How long did it take?

Five minutes.

Now you ready to move on to something else,

but let me let you try it.

Good job, good job, Mr. LeBron.

Good job, Hughes.

Use some of the techniques.

Yeah, but you got that looking smooth.

What we gonna talk about, JB?

Getting our foot in the game.

How to get your foot in the game, build your clientele up,

learn the business, get a name for yourself out here,

and then open your barbershop up.

When I was 20, I opened my first barbershop.

I worked in my partner's shop for two years first

and built the clientele up, right?

So I had about maybe 80, 90, 100 people

coming to me every week.

Then I open up the barbershop.

But right now, while you in school, be patient,

practice, cut as many heads as you can.

When you leave and go home, if you got little cousins,

you got people in the neighborhood,

cut, cut, cut as much as you can,

'cause the more you cut, the better you get.

Hey, hey, what's up, Bronson? What's going on with you?

I just been busy.

You got, are you getting through that application?

Good afternoon,

thank you for calling People Trust.

How can I help you?

Well, it's my credit score.

It's gonna mess me up, ain't it?

No, ma'am, we don't base it off your credit score.

Trucking Logistics, LLC.

Yes, sir. This your plan right here.

Have you got any business funding?

Or you've been doing this all out your pocket?

It's just all out of my pocket so far.

As far as just driving, yeah,

I've been in the business for 10 years,

and my dad is a driver as well.

I've covered every corner of transportation in the industry,

so I would wanna create those jobs for other people.

Tell me what it is that you wanna do.

Long term, I would ultimately like to have my own salon

or become an instructor.

Okay, okay, okay.

And you've been traveling to your customers?

Yes. Like their homes,

their- Yes, yes.

Oh, okay, yeah, that ain't.

Yeah. Yeah.

Do you have any operating capital right now?

Unfortunately, I do not at this time.

Okay, okay, so you need- I won't-

So you need gas money.

Correct. You need food money.

Product. Products and supplies.

And I have a business name.

I made my own logo. I've been working.

So we spoke on the phone.

You were saying you are interested in a loan?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, I'm just gonna get this out.

So tell me about what you're doing with your businesses.

I'm Barbara Salas. I do credit restoration.

I also have a T-shirt and decal line.

Okay.

Due to the things that I deal with in life,

such as sickle cell, having a pacemaker,

having 80% mass in my right breast,

going to treatment once a week-

And then you still run three businesses?

Yes, ma'am.

I heard that now.

You know, capital is a lifeblood of a community.

If the blood ain't circulating,

then you gonna have some issues.

So the blood has not been circulating for a long time.

Why is it that we overlook

this economically segregated community?

Why is the issue swept under the rug and not talked about?

What do you think and feel

when you hear the word ownership?

For me, when I think about ownership,

it's owning my own home

so that I'll have something to pass down to my children.

Nobody in my family own anything.

So ownership is important to me

because I wanna create jobs and opportunities

for my boys and my little cousins and my nephews.

My oldest is 27, and my youngest is seven,

and I think about it a lot.

Of course, nothing was passed down to me,

and I don't have anything to pass down to them.

It just feel good to know that you have something

that is yours that nobody can take away.

For so long, we haven't had anything that was ours.

Yeah, we damn proud of, you know, when we do own something,

whether it's a Cadillac or a house or a boat.

It's the idea of it belonging to you

and that you can self-determine what will happen to it

without having to ask anyone.

You don't have to ask for permission

Come in.

All right, thank you. How you doing, Mr. Williams?

Glad to see you back today. Hello, Sandra.

I've been making Philly cheesesteaks and hoagies

since I was 16 years old.

I've been in restaurant business for 26 years.

You have a food truck or-

Have a food truck,

a food truck. Got a food truck.

But my ambition within 12 months

is to have a brick and mortar.

So who you bank with right now?

Well, I- And did you consider them

for getting the loan?

They gave me an understanding

that they wouldn't loan me any money.

Really?

They still want my business.

They still want me to process my credit card payment.

Your business is still making deposits in this bank.

Yes, yes.

And in turn, will not make you a loan.

Yes.

The wealth gap has grown tremendously.

The CDFI is a community development financial institution.

All people matter, regardless of their credit history.

We're not restricted, so-

I was at a traditional bank for nine years.

Sadly, banking while Black is a real thing.

They don't necessarily train you to know that,

but once you get in there

and you actually see that the person coming in,

if they're white, they're gonna offer them credit cards.

They're gonna offer them loans, financing,

you know, all of those.

But you come in and you're Black, it's no services offered.

Sometimes the interaction with the teller is,

you know, you can see the difference in how they treat you.

So I just don't, I just don't use banks.

Banking while Black does exist.

Banking while Black, driving while Black,

eating while Black, your waiter or your waitress

can treat you differently.

I mean, there is just so many things.

It's crazy the things that Black people have to deal with.

It becomes an experience that you just,

you try to avoid the disappointment of it,

and rather than go through the frustration,

you work around it.

It's a workaround.

Big banks, they don't know the community.

They don't know 'em. They don't have a relationship.

And you wanna be able to be sustainable,

and you wanna be profitable, and you wanna be scalable.

But we just want you to think about every aspect.

Yeah, okay. And best position yourself.

This helps you to really build your credit profile.

So we can provide you with some ongoing technical assistance

to kind of help you along the way.

We got the name People Trust

because trust in the financial system is just not there.

My goal is to restore the trust in a system

that may have not been built for you.

So we try to see what's the problem, how can we help.

We find a way.

I've always wanted to own my own business.

I hear so much, "If you could just gimme a chance,

just gimme a chance to prove that I'm trustworthy,

that I'm creditworthy, that I can run,

I can run this business successfully."

Y'all ready? All right, one,

two,

three,

four,

five,

six,

seven, uh-uh, that should be a backhand.

She knew. She knew.

Come on, let's go to one.

Historically, barbers have been the go-to

in the community, one of the oldest

and most prestigious professions.

They were the doctors. They did the blood letting.

They did the tooth pulling.

They did the, they were the priests.

One customer lost his job,

and he had been a faithful customer, come in all the time,

I mean, bring in his family, his kids, everybody, you know.

He said, "Mr. Washington,"

he said, "I'm down really bad, and I need to borrow $150."

I've been a barber in the community for over 20 years,

so when the community start hurting,

who do you think they gonna come to?

They came to the people that they can come to for help.

He said, "I'm getting a job,

and I can pay you back in 30 days."

So I made him a loan, you know.

I didn't think he was gonna pay it back

when I gave him the loan at the time,

but he came back, and he paid it back.

And a couple weeks later, he came back again.

Guess what he did? He paid me back!

So I made him another loan, and he paid that loan back.

So then we started thinking about,

"Well, how can these small loans

at that size really have an impact?"

If they don't have credit,

then they can't get a loan from a bank.

That means they have to go to a loan shark

or they have to go to some payday lender

that's going to never let them pay them off.

And I thought about it, and I said, "Wait a minute.

This is what's affecting my community."

So you see how it built up?

Now, man, we done service like, 2020, we serving 900 folks.

And so what we did was we applied

to become a community development financial institution,

which was put in place to be able

to help low- and moderate-income communities

that wouldn't otherwise receive the opportunity.

Let him down and let him go.

Come on in.

In April this year, my house caught on fire.

So you know, I was pushed out.

I was calling to inquire

about your rental assistance.

You're behind on rent now?

I forgot your name. Give me your name again.

Candace Ford.

Okay, cancer survivor.

Yeah.

Unfortunately it's just a one-time deal.

I believe we're the only rapid rehousing

that is in Central Arkansas.

How much does it cost you to live every month?

I don't know, 'cause I ain't never been on my own.

Okay.

Have you been looking around?

Yeah, every time I have a- I had a landlord in today,

and I asked him, and he doesn't have anything.

And when you move, we'll pay the security deposit

and your first three months' rent.

Let's talk about a budget.

How's the job looking? Any-

Well, just, it's really that I'm,

it's hard because I don't have nowhere to shower and stuff.

Right, that is one thing about Little Rock.

There's just really not a lot of affordable housing.

There's a huge housing need.

Correct, there's just too many people waiting for help.

You're four months behind,

but did she tell you the balance?

This is a grant, just an emergency grant,

'cause I heard you say you didn't have any clothes,

you didn't have any transportation.

You know, everything burnt up.

For 17 days in a hotel, man.

There you go.

How much is the weekly rent?

The weekly rent?

Uh-huh.

It's not weekly.

She was just gonna charge me like 525 a month.

My mother, she passed away with cancer,

and so I'm just thinking if, since you, you know,

in that situation, maybe if we was able to do,

you know, maybe a grant for a month,

that'd give you time to find a place.

How do you think that works?

It'll help me a lot. I think that'll help.

What you think?

It'll help me a lot.

Most of the time it's state of emergency.

"Well, I needed help like yesterday."

We never got the 40 acres and the mule that was promised.

That's like the big elephant in the room.

This was promised to you. You never got it.

Nobody never talked about it.

It didn't come up in any type

of other political discussions.

And the fallout is what we see,

a huge racial wealth gap, economic injustices,

and no, not really an end to it in sight.

Here in Little Rock, there is a physical divide,

have on one side, have not on the other.

It's not a wealth gap. It is a wealth chasm.

I-630, the great divide.

How's it going, man? You ready to ride?

You know, when we cross I-630,

you can tell a big difference.

This neighborhood is the heart of the Black community.

There are no banks over here,

and you got about 30,000 community members over here.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a ATM.

That community has been economically segregated.

Look at this, we got four, five boarded-up houses

on this little half a block.

So we crossed I-630,

and now we're going into The Heights,

and in The Heights are maybe 8,000 in population,

but you got 14 banks,

and you don't see a boarded-up house, not one.

Well, you have commerce here.

You have places where business can exist.

You don't see that on the other side of town.

You know, then of course you had redlining

where banks would not make money accessible

to people who lived in certain areas,

and oftentimes those certain areas

were areas where Black folks lived.

This phenomenon of building interstates

through Black communities, and they bring about destruction.

I'm gonna take you and show you

our new location where we opening it up.

All right. That's redlined.

This is the first financial institution ever

in this community, and so-

And it looks good, too.

Thank you.

We've been working hard.

Do you believe in the American dream?

What is the American dream?

You tell me, and we'll both know.

I was told this growing up.

"You work hard, you do what you're supposed to do,

and you'll achieve your goal," right?

And in essence you, that's supposed to be true.

But I have to say that I've sat at the table

in front of my children and said,

"As much as this is supposed to be true,

it is still possible that that may not happen for you."

Nice house, cars, family tooken care of, bill free.

Well, no, no, I'm just out here surviving.

I'm just trying to make a way.

So I couldn't just elaborate

with the American dream is.

I wouldn't know.

There was a time in my life early on

when I wanted to fix what my mother was going through

trying to take care of me.

She had me when she was 16 years old,

had to drop outta school, get a GED.

So when I was born, I was brought home to this house,

and my grandmother was a single parent

with 16 kids in the house,

and now my mother at 16 was bringing home

another addition to the family.

You know, watching my mother early in my life

and watching the sacrifices that she made

for, you know, folks in the neighborhood,

she wanted to be an inspiration to the folks

that lived in the housing projects to let them know

that they didn't have to stay there.

This is where my mother was eulogized.

She had cervical cancer.

Two weeks before I graduated high school,

my mother passed away.

She didn't see me walk.

That was tough. I felt lost.

That left me lost, feeling lost.

Okay, what do I do now?

You know, I have two younger sisters.

Where do I go from here?

Hello. Hello.

How are you? How you doing?

I'm good. How are you?

I have a eight-month-old.

Like, you can't be without no lights.

I think the first thing is to get you off the streets.

We're gonna do you an emergency grant.

Let's do a $1,500 grant.

This is a new beginning, you know what I'm saying?

I kind of adopted some of the mission that she had

that she didn't get a chance to live out.

Thank you. You understand?

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you very much.

I appreciate you. Absolutely.

It fell on me to carry the torch.

My mother provided such a great example of being a,

of humanity and having compassion

and understanding that life circumstances happen

and when they happen that people need compassion.

People need restoration. People need rehabilitation.

People need love.

I want you and I want you to stand up for a second.

I'm gonna show you something right now

that we don't hardly ever do.

But I want you to, for two minutes, I want you

to look at him in his eyes, and I want you to be with him,

and I want you to be with him for two minutes.

All right, come closer, right here.

Now, don't look off.

When you look in those eyes, think about your kids.

Think about your loved ones.

Think about the setbacks and the wins,

all the hard lessons, and just see all the hurt.

See all the pain. Be with him right now.

Time.

It's all right, it's all right.

It's all right. It's all right.

It's all right.

I seen my big brother,

who I ain't seen since I was 12 years old.

Mm, that say a lot, tell a whole story, you know?

And that was uncomfortable for them.

I know it was, 'cause I've done it before.

But that's a exercise that will help you,

if you're somebody that's introverted

and you're somebody that's kind of in a shell

and help you be more assertive

and help you to be more, you know,

understanding to what other people are going through.

You went to prison, and when you went to prison,

what did that mean?

10 years of my life, I mean-

And where'd that leave you?

Right. Lost.

So you know, when you are secluded from the world

for that amount of time, man, you become behind.

Okay, you 28, 27 now. What you gonna do?

As a Black man, you know,

we're not offered opportunities,

especially after times that, you know,

we may have messed up or made a mistake in our life.

So it's like now, "Okay, I gotta do something."

I always could cut hair, you know, but I just never thought,

"Man, maybe I should go to school."

I went in and enrolled at Washington Barber College.

I learned so much, just things that, you know,

things that you need to know

to sharpen yourself up to be successful.

I did seven years in prison,

seven years, five months, six days to be exact,

on a 30-year sentence, and I sit before you right now

16 years later, and I'm still not free.

I was homeless three times from when I got outta prison.

I was homeless three times.

I went on to the shelters.

Yeah. Did what I needed to do.

Saved my money up, got out.

But my crime does not make me an eternal criminal.

Right, three of our barbers,

they were formerly incarcerated,

and they were just each sharing the trauma

that they experienced while being there

and how, you know, to be out, it's a huge adjustment.

So on day one, if you have nothing,

you ain't got a toothbrush, no toothpaste,

all of those essential things, you right back at stress one.

Right after they get out, they call me within 72 hours.

I'm able to send their name, their release dates,

and how much time they did,

and then I just email everything over,

and People Trust contacts them,

and they go pick up a $325 grant,

which I think is so great

because coming out of any system,

especially the jail system,

you don't come out with any money.

You, Arlo, have made it possible.

You are looking at everything

from the perspective of inclusion.

Absolutely, absolutely.

See, where for so many years,

I and so many have saw only exclusion.

It's truly community development, and that's developing.

You can't develop a community

if you don't develop the people.

Exactly.

The reason that I do what I do

and what gives me energy to keep going

is equity, equity, equity, equity.

So that means if the way it is over, you know,

on this side of town is, on this side of the freeway

is this way over here as well.

The resources that's over here, the resources over there,

the banks that's over here, banks over here,

money over here, money over there,

credit over here, credit over there.

How you doing?

All right.

You don't do any body work do you?

Little bit.

Little bit? Not a whole bunch.

How long you been wanting to do this?

Been in an automotive business for 20, 25 years,

running a Jiffy Lube for the last five.

But the owner came and told me

he was selling the business, and so.

When they let you go, you know,

you had to think quick on your feet,

"What am I gonna do now?"

Yeah, but I needed to open up new avenues,

and the biggest one is being able

to get this loan to get started.

Y'all give it up for Lyncola Franklin.

While you were in the program,

you accessed a 3,500 small business loan.

So maybe if we could extend that.

Mm-hmm.

So if we extend the 3,500 that we already gave you

to up to 10,000 and we do it for two years,

your payments would be at like 452 a month.

How soon would you need

before you start making payments?

I would say a couple months

just to get me going.

So maybe we deferred your payments

for 90 days, that'll help you to-

Definitely, I appreciate that.

All right, cool.

My clientele is building.

Mr. Washington, he seen what my future may look like,

and I'm, you know, forever grateful for him believing in me.

As of today, you doing business as Incredible Auto

earned $50,000.

So you got a lease going already?

Yes, ma'am. You talk to-

This is the outside.

About how many square foot is that?

5,000.

[whistles] It's nice.

It's like my dream finally becoming a business owner

and not having to work for anybody else again.

I work for myself now.

Thank y'all. I really wanna shed some tears, man.

You're your own boss. And I don't have to worry

about somebody selling the business

and somebody coming in and telling me,

"Hey, we don't wanna continue with you anymore."

Here I am, three months later.

When you investing in something that you love to do,

it makes everything a lot easier.

We felt like that if we could redevelop

and change this corner,

that it would help turn the neighborhood.

Once they can put funds here and deposits,

then we're not going to allow the money

to go outside of this community.

We're going to put the money back into the community.

And it's gonna scare some people.

It's gonna scare the hell out of 'em,

because now you can see that it can be done,

so you have no more excuses.

Those institutions that are in place right now

are not gonna idly sit back.

You don't think? They don't care about this.

Yes, they do, because if this catches on,

it becomes a threat.

You really believe that.

Mark my word,

because it will- What kind of threat?

Because it can inspire others

to think that they can be free.

This is about being free.

Economic justice is right and wrongs, fixing the system,

you know, some type of repayment for injustice.

A tree is known by the fruit that it bears.

So if I don't see any fruit, then I don't see any impact.

So if you have money and you have wealth

and you can't create impact, what's the point?

What is justice? What does it mean for me?

What does it mean for people of color?

Justice is just not quite yet available for everybody.

Justice, justice.

It's just being a Black man in this world,

man, good luck.

Justice is something that we need,

but that's what we're fighting for.

Right now, today I can look at justice as empowerment.

Just doing what's right and being fair.

You ever heard that phrase, "Get your money right"?

I gotta help the community get their money right.

The community has to get their money right,

and this is an opportunity to get the money right.

So I'm on a mission, and it ain't over.

It's just begun.