Original subtitles

- History is not an exact science.

It is never set in stone.

As time passes, knowledge of the past

is refined and evolves.

But by definition, perceived ideas have thick skins

and are hard to shift.

- I have a dream that all men are created equal.

- To understand the realities of the world,

you sometimes have to shake them up

and decipher the facts by looking at them another way.

"We're in!"

The New Deal became the stuff of legends for saving the people of

America from the Great Depression,

? while giving them aid, work, and new rights.

And yet?

In July 1932, 20,000 World War I veterans marched on Washington.

Jobless and without resources, they demanded the bonus payment

promised to them after the

war.

To pressurise the government, they camped on public ground

for several weeks with their

wives and children.

The 1929 Wall Street Crash had caused a global economic downturn

and plunged the United States

into the Great Depression.

In what was an electoral year, the Republican President

Hoover, running for re-election,

refused to enter into talks.

He ordered the army to clear out the veterans and their families.

Today's soldiers clashed with the soldiers of yesteryear.

The United States was at war with itself.

The veterans' distress mirrored that of millions of Americans.

11 million men were out of work, 25% of the workforce.

The middle class was as badly hit as the working class,

cities as badly as rural areas.

In a land where the work ethic was a national value,

it was embarrassing to ask for state handouts.

One unemployed man confessed, "It took me a month.

I went there more or less every three days,

but I walked on by without going in."

A storekeeper in Philadelphia described the situation

of a family that owed him money.

There are 11 of them.

They have no shoes, no pants.

There are no chairs in their house.

"Dear God, it's simple, you walk in and you start crying."

Getting the country out of this economic rut was the only

subject of the presidential campaign,

which pitted President Hoover against the Democrat

Franklin Roosevelt.

Roosevelt placed much of the blame on Hoover's passiveness

while presenting himself as a

fighter.

"I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people.

This is more than a political campaign, it is a call to arms.

Give me your help not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade

to restore America to its own people.

Across the country, Roosevelt tirelessly sold his New Deal,

focusing on what he called the

three R's ? relief, recovery, and reform. He hammered it home.

He wanted to resume the march

to true progress, true justice, and true equality for all

citizens, both rich and poor.

His promises inspired trust.

I believe he's a square shooter, and that he'll carry out

the democratic platform.

I'm a farmer, and I'm going to vote for the democratic

nominee for president.

As I know, he'll write the conditions of the country.

After a landslide victory, Roosevelt was sworn in

as the 32nd president

of the United States on March the 4th, 1933.

"In the event that the national emergency is still critical?"

In his inaugural speech, he laid out how he would fight the battle

against the Great Depression.

No more slacking.

If the situation required it, he would ask Congress for the

same powers as in wartime.

This was something new.

The US, made up of federal states, wasn't used to the

national government running the

economy and the social welfare system.

Roosevelt needed to act.

Citizens had lost their trust in the banks and were

withdrawing their money en masse.

A new crisis was looming.

The president announced the immediate closure of all banks.

For four days, federal inspectors would assess them.

Only viable banks would receive

the necessary funding to save them.

To give the new president a chance,

Americans accepted the measure in good spirits.

On March the 12th, the day before the reopening of the banks,

the President addressed the

nation for the first time.

Let me make it clear that the banks will take care of all needs.

We have provided the machinery to restore our financial

system and it is up to you to

support and make it work.

It is your problem, my friends, no less than it is mine.

Together we cannot fail.

This fireside chat heralded the Roosevelt method.

He wanted to give the impression that he was close to his

fellow citizens, whom he called

his friends.

He showed them that he respected and trusted them.

The New Deal was a partnership.

They, like him, would need to make an effort.

His speech sounded spontaneous, but his text, which he followed

to the letter, was meticulously

rehearsed.

The refined, experienced politician from a wealthy background

established a close relationship

with Americans.

This is another partial reunion of the Roosevelt family."

And it worked.

Roosevelt claimed a first victory.

When the banks reopened for business, citizens lined up to

redeposit their savings.

Happy days were here again.

To celebrate saving the banks, after 14 years of prohibition,

Congress authorized the sale

of beer and wine with a low alcohol content.

Welcome to the New Deal!

After these two emergency measures, Roosevelt appointed and

presented his cabinet, including,

for the very first time, a woman.

Frances Perkins, the new U.S. Secretary of Labor.

he brought his advisors to Washington,

mainly lawyers, economists, and university professors.

Together, they became what was called the Brain Trust.

Their job was to come up with proposals

which were then submitted to the president.

He, in turn, would pass on the ones he approved

to Congress where they would be made law.

With their huge majority,

The Democrats pushed through the objectives of the New

Deal, but their party was made

up of two factions.

The Northern and Western Democrats represented an urban

population, mainly company workers

and laborers, often unionized.

Their representatives favored progressive social reforms.

Meanwhile, the Southern Democrats formed a tightly-knit

caucus, representing 15 states,

including the former so -called "slave states".

It was the poorest region in the US, with an average income

less than 50% of the national

average.

In some of these states, African Americans made up

almost half the population.

Most of them supported the Republican Party, out of loyalty to

Abraham Lincoln, the Republican

and president who abolished slavery.

Conversely, Southern whites, still deeply racist,

voted Democrat.

They practiced racial segregation to prevent blacks

from becoming integrated.

And to deprive them from the vote,

they used census suffrage and literacy tests.

Southern Democrats expected a lot from the New Deal for their

region's economic growth.

But their support was subjected to a non

-negotiable condition -the preservation of the racial

status quo.

Roosevelt knew that he needed the votes of the Southern caucus.

As the owner of a second home in Georgia, he knew the

South and he knew his party.

He was a political tightrope walker and chose as his vice

-president the experienced Southern

politician John Nance Garner. The New Deal was up and running.

During Roosevelt's first

100 days in office, initiatives to get Americans back to work

came one after the other.

In late March, the White House founded the CCC, the Civilian

Conservation Corps. Overseen

by the U.S. Army, the program recruited single young men,

aged between 18 and 25, to maintain

the country's vast national parks.

Pay was modest, but the young men were given bed and board and

received basic training.

In just three months, 1,463 working camps were opened.

In government-produced films, the young men resembled a

happy band of scouts with, as

their troop leader, the president himself, who came to inspect them.

The CCC was open to all, but the U.S. Army was segregated, as

were the camps it ran.

Blacks and whites were separated.

Positions of responsibility and the most technical jobs

were restricted to whites.

This sad reality didn't hold the New Deal back.

In May 1933, the President and his advisers presented

Congress with a project even more

ambitious than the CCC.

The task given to the Tennessee Valley Authority was to drain the

Tennessee River basin and

tributaries which spread across seven southern states.

The construction of a series of dams was to bring an end to

frequent devastating flooding

in the region, while also producing electricity.

Farming would be modernised and electricity would

attract new industries.

A virtuous circle which would create jobs and prosperity.

Within a few months, 9000 people were already hard at work.

The TVA was a first in the US, with the government supplying

labour by investing public money

in major works across an entire region.

Local recruitment was encouraged, but the

foremen were all white.

When black labourers were hired, they were given the toughest jobs.

The Southern Democrats were satisfied.

The program benefited their region without disturbing

its racial hierarchy.

The construction of the dams meant flooding vast areas.

125,000 people had to leave their land.

Once again, a distinction was made between whites and blacks.

The former received advice and compensation for their relocation.

While the latter were just left with a small handout, forcing

many of them to move to the

cities.

The slogans are new, but for us the New Deal is the same old rotten deal.

one member of the NAACP, the National Association for the

Advancement of Coloured People.

One white resident recalled, "There was a black lady who

had a little patch of land

with a vegetable garden and hens.

The authorities didn't take people like her into account,

and suddenly they had to

get out.

Meanwhile in Washington, US Secretary of Agriculture Henry A.

Wallace pushed through a law which

established the Agricultural Adjustment Administration,

tasked with the reform of farming.

The AAA asked farmers to reduce production in order to

raise the selling price of crops

and thus increase their revenue.

If farmers sold their produce more expensively, they would have

money to spend and the economic

wheel would start turning again.

In the meantime, the government would compensate for decreased

production with subsidies.

A new deal also targeted industry.

another acronym, the NRA, for National Recovery Administration.

Under the leadership of General Hugh S. Johnson, the NRA

established rules in each sector which

set minimum sale prices, minimum wages, and maximum working hours.

By invoking the spirit of partnership so dear to President

Roosevelt, Johnson called on

employers and employees alike to behave fairly.

The companies that participated in the collective effort had the NRA

logo printed on their products,

the patriotic symbol of the Blue Eagle, along with the

slogan, "We do our part."

Small company bosses and their workers adhered in numbers.

Everyone wanted to believe in it.

Throughout the autumn of 1933,

the NRA held numerous Blue Eagle parades in city centers.

In New York, in the presence of Hugh S. Johnson, the event lasted

more than 12 hours and resembled

a victory march-past.

Unsurprisingly, the Republicans and the big bosses opposed the NRA.

They saw it as the instrument of a Soviet-style economic plan.

It was out of the question that the government should impose

such rules on companies.

Some even claimed it would be unconstitutional.

But for the time being, the New Deal had the wind in its sails,

as proved by the thousands

of letters to the President that poured into the White House every day.

The New Deal may well have been the collective effort of an

entire team, but it was seen

and often presented as the work of one man.

And 'cause the road is open again.

There's an eagle blue in the White House too,

On the shoulder of our president there.

With a lusty call telling one and all,

"Brother, do your share."

There's a new day anew, there is more...

But the wave of optimism didn't last.

I am against the NRA. Last year I was making around $35 a

week. Now I make about $21.

Steelworkers of the Smoky City thinks that the NRA is 100% fine,

if the firms will live up to the code consigned to them.

The NRA didn't keep its promises to everyone.

Many bosses didn't fulfill their obligations towards their personnel.

They didn't increase pay, didn't respect the number of

working hours, and refused to

allow employees to join trade unions freely.

The tensions of the summer of 1932 resurfaced, and strikes

spread through all sectors across

the country.

In May 1934, Longshoremen blocked nearly the entire

waterfront along the West Coast.

In San Francisco, the death of two strikers shot down by police

officers caused a general strike.

The California governor went back to old ways and sent in

the National Guard.

NRA director General Hugh S. Johnson seemed less affable than

during the autumn parades.

"Now the right of dissatisfied men to strike against a

recalcitrant employer is inviolate.

This government has supported it and will support it to the limit.

It is a weapon of a two-sided conflict.

But the general strike is quite another matter."

There is a threat to the community. There is a menace to

government. That is civil war.

The Battle of Toledo in the state of Ohio came close to civil war.

It lasted five days, and pitted 10,000 strikers against

1,300 National Guardsmen.

The outcome, two strikers dead, and more than 200 injured.

As in industry, the first results in farming were disappointing.

setback for the New Deal.

To decrease production, crops were dug up and piglets

slaughtered in their thousands.

But the compensation payments handed up by the AAA remained in the

hands of the big landowners,

who refused to redistribute them.

So even though sale prices increased, sharecroppers and farmhands

with no harvest or subsidies

were left poverty-stricken.

Once again, private interests won out over the general interest.

The New Deal, once hijacked, no longer benefited

those who needed it most.

In July 1934, a Black worker in Alabama wrote to Hugh S. Johnson

to decry his working conditions.

Tell me what I can do.

I need to feed my family.

I know the government is handing out money to us laborers.

The President said so.

I want to work for the combined effort, but not for nothing."

Across the region, the Southern Democrats obtained a

waiver for certain industries,

notably cotton, not to apply NRA rules to jobs filled

by African Americans.

Still work, different treatment.

In a factory in South Carolina, whites earned 25 cents an hour

for a 40-hour working week,

Whereas for blacks, it was 10 cents an hour for a 78-hour week.

Variable NRA rules, segregated CCC camps, and exclusions from the TVA.

All this was tantamount to a federal mandate for discriminatory practices.

"A perverted effect of the New Deal, which broadened

inequalities between the white and

black populations."

"African-Americans should realize that the Roosevelt

administration does nothing for

them," wrote Walter White, president of the NAACP, the

largest association for the

defense of black rights.

Worse still, tensions caused by the economic crisis stirred up

hatred and led to an escalation

of racial violence in the South.

To bring an end to this, the Democrat senators of New York and

Colorado, Robert F. Wagner

and Edward P. Costigan, tabled a bill to indict on a federal level

those who carried out lynchings.

That didn't scare the lynch mobs.

In October in Florida, vigilantes announced in advance the

time and site for the lynching

of a young African-American man accused of raping and

murdering a white woman.

Twenty-three-year-old Claude Neal suffered a brutal death.

His murder sent shockwaves around the country.

But in Washington, the Southern Caucus managed to defeat the anti

-lynching bill in the Senate.

The president remained silent.

The true justice Roosevelt had promised during the election

campaign was yet to be enforced.

He explained to Walter White,

"I have to get legislation passed by Congress

"to save America.

"If I come out for the anti-lynching bill now,

"the Southerners will block every bill

"I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing.

"I just can't take that risk."

Roosevelt kept his distance from the racial question.

He never even discussed it in public.

He was protected by a security cordon.

During the New Deal, not one African -American was officially

received by the president.

And no black journalists had access to the White House.

And yet, black citizens weren't indifferent to the New Deal.

They adhered to it in increasing numbers.

A black State Department employee recalled,

"In the black neighborhoods,

during the fireside chats,

you could hear the radio playing along all the roads

leading to your home.

The president gave the impression

he was speaking to everyone personally."

Sylvester Harris was one of the listeners.

He was about to lose his farm in the state of Mississippi.

In desperation, he phoned the White House and, to his surprise,

managed to reach the President himself.

His farm was saved.

The White House press office used the story for political ends.

In November 1934, during the midterm elections,

Sylvester Harris was even invited to the Democratic Convention in

Chicago with the aim of winning

over black voters.

Taking advantage of this apparent interest, the few African

American public servants and

intellectuals in Washington got to work.

From the respected civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune,

they formed an informal network

which came to be known as the Black Cabinet.

They hoped to use their professional status to push forward the

interests of African Americans

in the New Deal.

Especially as Mrs. Bethune had the ear of Eleanor Roosevelt,

who was more accessible

than her husband.

In New York, anger against the New Deal was mounting.

Her family-run poultry wholesalers contested the sanctions

imposed on it for failing to

respect NRA regulations.

In its complaint, Schesters maintained that through the NRA,

the government was impeding

the right to free enterprise and going beyond its legitimate functions.

This echoed the Republican stance.

On May 27, 1935, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes found in

favor of Schester's.

The judgment hit like a bomb.

The NRA, hailed by millions of citizens, had acted

unconstitutionally.

Roosevelt took it on the chin in silence.

A disillusioned Texan Democrat wrote to him,

"Like I told you, the wealthiest will always call

"on the Supreme Court to kill our laws."

The NRA was dead and buried.

But in the spring of 1935,

the government rediscovered the impetus of 1933

by massively investing in the WPA,

the Works Progress Administration.

Its director, Harry Hopkins, soon made it the key

agency of the New Deal.

Its aim was to supply work to at least one member of a household

hit by long-term unemployment.

The WPA was active in all fields, the construction of roads,

bridges, airports, hospitals, schools

and public parks.

It financed public health programs and played roles in education,

training and leisure activities.

It hired artists and promoted the arts in order to guarantee

access to culture for all.

The WPA was everywhere.

One division was even dedicated to African Americans.

At its head was Alfred Edgar Smith.

To finally enable blacks to have access to qualified jobs

on a par with whites,

he made professional training a priority.

At the same time, Mary McLeod Bethune

was appointed director of the Division of Negro Affairs

within the National Youth Administration,

created by the WPA.

Hope was born.

At last, African -Americans might have a place

in the New Deal.

But segregation and discrimination

were too anchored in American society.

In reality, the efforts of Smith, Bethune,

and the Black Cabinet only benefited a minority.

During the summer of 1935, one measure followed the other.

As a riposte to the invalidation of the NRA, Senator Robert

F. Wagner pushed through a

law that gave private sector employees the right to organize

into trade unions, take

to part in collective bargaining and to go on strike.

But the Southern Democrats,

already hostile to his anti-lynching bill,

called for modifications.

Unsurprisingly, they managed to have domestic workers

and farm laborers, mostly black,

excluded from the Wagner Act.

Meanwhile, on August the 14th, Secretary of Labour Francis

Perkins helped push through

the Social Security Act.

It included unemployment insurance, an old age pension system

and financial support for

handicapped children.

It was a turning point in history, a first step towards

security for all promoted by

Roosevelt in his election campaign in 1932.

And while the Act marked a milestone, the system itself

was far from universal.

Once again the excluded were the same, 65% of black workers as

opposed to 27% of white

workers.

This ended the busy session with the Democrats thumbing their

nose at the Republicans one

last time before the vacation.

Attacks on incomes superior to $1 million.

Another victory for the New Deal.

In 1936 Roosevelt's first term in office came to an end.

The electoral year started badly.

The Supreme Court invalidated the Agricultural Adjustment

Act, a second flagship measure

judged to be unconstitutional.

The future of the New Deal was in danger.

To rescue it, the incumbent president called on the people.

More radical than in 1932, he attacked the big bosses.

He accused them of refusing to get on board and turning their

backs on the common effort.

Throughout the campaign, he drew on his charisma and

promoted his track record.

I have five children and I'm grateful for the things he's

done for the youth of this

country.

I came of age at a time when there was no security and no opportunity.

Roosevelt has provided both security and opportunity.

On October the 31st, 1936, in New York, Roosevelt received a 15

-minute standing ovation even

before beginning to talk.

Of course, of course we will continue to seek to improve working

conditions for the workers

of America, to reduce hours that are overlong, to increase

wages that spell starvation, to

to end the labour of children and to wipe out sweatshops.

And for all these, we have only just begun to fight."

The President hit his mark.

Three days later, he was re-elected with the highest

percentage of votes ever recorded.

Tantamount to a plebiscite for the New Deal.

The fight continued under good auspices.

The unemployment rate fell from 25 to 14 percent.

Production, profit and wage indexes returned to pre-Wall

Street crash levels.

Roosevelt seized the chance to attack the Supreme Court,

which would soon rule on the Wagner and Social Security Acts.

On February 5, 1937, he maintained before Congress

that the workload for older justices was too heavy.

He proposed that the President of the United States

should be able to appoint an extra judge

to support each justice aged over 70 years.

That his proposal would allow him to appoint six new judges

and thus guarantee a majority in the Supreme Court

wasn't down to chance.

A hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee began.

It was the talking point of the whole country.

Some believe that nine aged judges

shouldn't block what the people had massively voted for.

Others argued that it gave the president too much power.

Roosevelt relied on his most effective weapon,

the fireside chat.

"But we cannot yield our constitutional destiny to the

personal judgment of a few men who,

being fearful of the future, would deny us the necessary means

of dealing with the present."

A few weeks later, to everyone's surprise, the Supreme

Court endorsed the Wagner and

Social Security Acts.

With this about turn, the judges agreed that the government

could legislate in social and

economic matters, and thus legitimized the profound change

that the New Deal brought

to the American system.

there was no longer any need to reform the Supreme Court.

But with a rare lack of political nous,

Roosevelt stuck to his plan.

And packing the Supreme Court

with judges who adhered to his cause

came across as political maneuvering.

The public stopped believing in him.

On June the 14th, the Senate Judiciary Committee

made up of seven Democrats and three Republicans,

unanimously decided that the president's proposal

was a dangerous abandonment of the constitutional principle.

The opposition by the seven Democrats on the committee

was a personal failure for Roosevelt.

For the Southern Democrats, the proposal was the last straw.

Behind their party's back, they grew closer to the Republicans.

Across the country, tension also increased. Unemployment was up again.

Reassured by an economic upturn early in 1937, the President once

again attempted to balance

the budget by reducing the finances of the New Deal agencies,

notably those of the WPA,

Works Progress Administration.

Another error of judgement.

The economy was still ailing, and it was the federal

programmes that had propped it up.

The United States entered into recession, a tough blow

ironically called the Roosevelt

recession.

To counter it, in the spring of 1938, the President demanded

and received new funding

for public works.

Secretary of Labour Frances Perkins went on the attack.

She wanted to re-establish the measures abolished by the

invalidation of the NRA ? a minimum

wage and maximum working hours.

Backed by Roosevelt, she added the abolition of child labour.

Congress voted for the measure, despite fierce opposition from

the Republicans and the Southern

Democrats.

Bosses no longer had the right to hire people under the age of 16

to work in mines or factories.

However, children who worked the land, mostly black, weren't

protected by the new law.

Following the mid-term election in November, the balance

in Congress changed.

The Southern caucus remained just as strong, and the

Republicans gained a few seats.

The two groups formed a conservative coalition

and refused to back Roosevelt.

Without a majority,

the great venture of the New Deal came to an end.

The president, therefore, started to look

to the increasingly alarming situation overseas.

In the early 1940s, he took on a new role, that of a war leader.

He turned America into the arsenal of the Allies, and finally

managed to bring about

full employment.

On April 12th 1945, on the eve of victory in Europe,

Franklin D. Roosevelt's death

cemented his status as a legend.

Black or white, Americans mourned a president who, with the

New Deal, had given millions

of them jobs and security.

By transforming the role of the US government, Roosevelt had

also laid the foundations of

a welfare state which continued to grow over the next half-century.

And yet, the New Deal didn't fulfil all its promises.

It left behind one-tenth of the American population.

In the aftermath of war, African Americans engaged in a

new combat. The fight for

equality between whites and blacks, a fight

which is yet to be won.