All language subtitles for The.1619.Project.S01E01.WEBRip.x264

They say our
people were born on the water.

The teal eternity
of the Atlantic

had severed them so
completely from their home,

it was like nothing had
ever existed before.

These African men and women
from different nations,

all shackled together
in the hull of a ship.

They were one people now.

And although they tried
to break our ancestors,

to erase our identities,

we forged a new
culture of our own,

giving birth to ourselves.

It didn't matter we were told

that, by virtue of our bondage,
we would never be American

because it was by virtue of our bondage
that we became the most American of all.

This is The 1619 Project.

Uh, Dad's here. Happy
Valentine's Day, Nikole.

This is a tape for Nikole.

Hello, darling. How you doing?

Excuse me while I partake
of this cancer stick.

My memory of my
father, Milton Hannah,

is tender and complicated.

He was brilliant, tough, funny,
hard-working, and hard-living.

He always flew a flag
in our front yard.

Our home on a corner lot of a
distressed block was humble,

but my father made sure
that flag was pristine.

When I was young,
I didn't understand

how he could so proudly
display his patriotism

for a country that had treated
him and our people so poorly.

You see, my father was
born into poverty in 1945

on a sharecropping
farm in Leflore County,

just outside of
Greenwood, Mississippi.

The region was
notoriously violent

when it came to its
near-majority Black population.

Mississippi lynched more Black people
than any other state in the nation.

And Leflore County
lynched more Black people

than any other county
in Mississippi.

In 1947, my grandmother joined the
flood of six million Black Southerners

who fled north during
the Great Migration.

Still, my father and
his siblings grew up

in a poor, segregated
neighborhood in Waterloo, Iowa,

and went to segregated schools.

So in 1962, at the age of 17,

my father took what seemed
like the best option

for a poor Black teen:

he signed up for the army.

So you were a... a... a child

- when he came back from... from service.
- Yes. I remember it so plain

because, uh, we had a porch...

- Remember we had that porch...
- Yeah.

- And, uh, when that cab pulled
up, Mama said, "Milton's here."

Yeah.

And, uh, got his...
Popped the truck, got his duffel bag out

and everybody's looking like,
"Who is this guy?" You know?

I remember he was proud
that he learned to speak German

Oh, yeah. He sure did.

- I didn't know any other
Black people who spoke German.

And when I was in high
school, I took German

because I thought it would be
cool to speak German with my dad,

but then I... I was terrible at
German and I didn't get very far.

But it does speak to, like,
Dad was, like, so smart.

I just... MONROE
TILLMAN: Yeah.

- He used to read all the
time, I just remember...

He was
smart. All the time.

That's why you got
all of them brains.

Thank you.

But despite his intellect
and his military service,

my dad was never able to live
the so-called American dream.

Instead, like so many Black
Americans of his generation,

he would toil his entire life in
service job after service job,

never seeming to
get too far ahead.

The first thing you always see
when you come to our house...

Flag in the yard.
is that flag on the pole.

And one thing about Dad,

he was patriotic.

- Oh, yeah.
- Yes, he was.

I was embarrassed by
that flag when I was a kid.

Well, you shouldn't have been.

He was a part of that
United States Army.

He was a part of a big group, and
he felt that, and he enjoyed that.

You know, they served their
country. They... You know?

But, hey, you serve your country don't
mean your country's gonna serve you.

Looking back at my
confusion and embarrassment

over my father's patriotism,

I realize that, like most young
people, I thought I understood so much,

when, in fact, I knew so little.

The truth is my dad knew
exactly what he was doing

when he raised that flag.

He knew that our contributions

to building the richest and most
powerful nation in the world

were undeniable,

and that no people had a greater claim
to the American flag than we did.

We laid the foundations of The
White House and the Capitol,

and lugged the heavy wooden
tracks of the railroads

that crisscrossed the South.

The relentless buying, selling,
insuring, and financing of our bodies

would help make Wall
Street and New York City

a financial capital
of the world.

But it would be inaccurate
to reduce our contributions

to the vast material wealth
created by our forced labor.

- We can only stop fighting
when all our people are free.

Black Americans have
always been foundational

to the idea of American freedom.

We have to be that voice.

We have to be the change.

How would the history
books remember you?

What will be your legacy?

Through
centuries of resistance,

Black Americans have helped the
country live up to its founding ideals.

Without our idealistic,
strenuous, and patriotic efforts,

our democracy today would
look very different.

In fact, our country might
not be a democracy at all.

Our identity as Americans
is anchored in the idea

that we are the greatest
democracy in the world.

We believe that freedom
is, in large part,

defined by the right
to choose our leaders.

And so, perhaps, more
than any other nation,

we define citizenship by the
ability to cast a ballot.

Voting impacts our lives,
families, and communities.

It determines what
policies we enact,

what we fund and regulate,

what kind of justice
we will receive,

and, ultimately, what
equality looks like.

Voting is power.

And that is why, while
calling itself a democracy,

this country has always tried to limit
which people are considered citizens

and which people can vote.

And why, after a multiracial
coalition of voters

elected the first Black
president in 2008,

it spawned the
beginnings of a campaign

to challenge the validity of
certain votes, certain voters,

and ultimately, by 2020, the
results of elections themselves.

I just wanted
to tell you, team,

that we're glad you are
up bright and early.

All of us will have
our assignments.

So far, there haven't been any problems
at any of the polling locations.

You all voted this morning?

- Yup, first time. WOMAN:
Where did you vote?

- First time?
- First time.

I'm Helen Butler,

executive director of the Georgia
Coalition for the Peoples' Agenda.

And I've been working in this
civic engagement work since 2000,

but with the Peoples' Agenda,
I've been here since 2003.

So it's over two decades of work,
uh, to protect the right to vote,

to get people, uh, engaged

and to really have them be
participants in the electoral process.

They will call you
with all issues.

There will be things that you'll need to
escalate to me, to Lyndon, or to Susan.

The Georgia Coalition
of the Peoples' Agenda

is a non-partisan organization
working to defend the right to vote.

In 2020, they helped mobilize
a multiracial group of voters

who, in a perennially red state,

chose Democrats for both Senate
seats and the presidency.

A move that shifted the
balance of power in Washington

and prompted President Trump

to infamously call Georgia's Secretary
of State, Brad Raffensperger.

All I
want to do is this.

I just want to
find 11,780 votes.

By the winter of 2021,

the fight for voting rights had
ignited into a pitched battle

after Georgia's
Republican-controlled legislature

passed new restrictive
voting laws.

- Today, the Department of Justice
is suing the state of Georgia.

Our complaint alleges that recent
changes to Georgia's election laws

were enacted with the purpose of denying
or abridging the right of Black Georgians

to vote on account of
their race or color.

By the 2022
mid-term elections,

Helen Butler and her
team were on high alert

for any voter
disenfranchisement.

Good morning.
Peoples' Agenda.

We just got a report

that, uh, because of an issue
with the zip codes of some voters,

um, this is their
assigned voting place,

but they're telling them
that they can't vote there.

When I get there,

I should ask for the election,
um, the poll manager.

Yep.

And Anna will meet you
there outside as well.

Okay.

So we are about to head to a
polling location, um, in Atlanta.

Apparently, as you heard,

um, some of the elderly people
in the community have been told

that they cannot
vote at that location

despite that being, um, their
designated precinct location.

Um, so we're gonna head there
and speak to the poll manager

and see if there's
anything that we can do.

The Cosby Spear Towers are
an affordable housing community

in midtown Atlanta

for seniors and people
living with disabilities.

- They told me I could not vote until
I do a provisional vote or something

because of the error that they
put 30309 for my zip code,

which is 30308.

They trying to send
me to Hapeville.

Because of what
appeared to be a clerical error

that mixed up zip codes,

June Williams and other
residents in her building

were being rerouted to a
precinct roughly 20 minutes away.

And have you voted
at this precinct before?

- Yeah, I vote here every time and
never had a problem 'til today.

If Williams wanted to
vote at her regular precinct,

she would have to cast
a provisional ballot

and a County Board would later
determine whether her vote counted.

But instead of being able to
cast her ballot immediately,

the new restrictive
laws required her

to return near the end
of the day to do so.

- So, they told them
to come back at 5:00.

Once they come at 5:00...

To me, it sounds like
they're trying to say,

"Oh, we can guarantee your...
your ballot will be casted."

It just doesn't
make sense to me.

And what was... It just
doesn't make sense.

- Lyndon's calling the election
office, so hopefully...

It just makes me
feel very uncomfortable.

It should not be
this hard to vote.

It just does not...
Especially considering...

And it kind of brings
tears to my eyes

because these people
are disabled, you know?

It's just messed up.

Just messed up.

We're gonna fix...
We're gonna get it fixed.

My shift was supposed
to end at 1:00,

but I'm like, I'll be here
'til ten o'clock if I need to.

Black Americans
have always had to fight

to participate in this
country's democracy.

And even before that
democracy was established,

we were fighting for the very
principle that laid its foundation:

freedom.

In this country,

we are taught that we are a
democracy because of our freedoms.

Freedom of speech,

freedom of religion,

freedom of the press,

the freedom to protest.

And our national mythology
credits the Founding Fathers

for establishing America
as the land of the free.

But even after independence,

white freedom in America was
predicated on Black slavery.

Black people dreamed of freedom
even as they lived without it.

And they fought for
freedom for centuries,

all the way back to before
our country's founding.

It is Black people who have been
the perfectors of our democracy.

Slavery would be foundational

to the economy, politics,
and laws of the new nation.

And so I've always
found it strange

that Black people are so absent from
so many historical colonial sites,

our presence virtually erased.

Especially here in Williamsburg,

where at the start
of the revolution,

enslaved people made up
nearly half of the population.

And the question of their freedom
sparked a historical event

that created a tipping point
in the Southern Colonies

at the dawn of the
American Revolution.

Look at this perfect coordination,
though. You see this?

- Air Jordans! I... I'm
wearing Costco Jordans.

Costco Jordans! Is that a thing?

No. It is now!

I think I wore
Costco Jordans the first,

you know, 15 years of
my life as a child...

I think
you've earned some Airs.

So we are here on the
grounds of the Governor's Palace

in Williamsburg, Virginia.

It is the symbol,

the pinnacle of power

in the largest British
American Colony of Virginia.

It's where the governor resided.

The governor in 1775 was Lord
Dunmore, a Scottish Lord.

And he was extremely popular
among white Virginians,

because he had just led them in a
race war against Native Americans

whose land they coveted.

So what changes?

James Madison, who later
will write the U.S. Constitution

and become president
of the United States,

reported that African Americans
had started to hold meetings

to choose who would lead them,

to quote him, "when the
English troops should arrive."

In April of 1775,

rumors of slave revolts were
running rampant in Virginia,

sparking paranoia among
the white colonists.

But Dunmore had other worries.

Even though the fighting had not
yet reached the Southern Colonies,

he had become gravely concerned

that the growing patriot sentiment
stirring in Virginia against the British

might bring the revolution
to his front door.

So in order to preemptively
deter an attack,

Dunmore confiscated gunpowder in
the capital here in Williamsburg

and decided to make a threat.

Governor Dunmore said,
"If you touch a hair on my head,

"I will declare
freedom to the slaves

and reduce the town of
Williamsburg to ashes."

He thought, "If I play this card
of threatening to free the slaves,

that will scare them off."

That's a serious threat
to make. WOODY: That's right.

- Dunmore understands that he's playing
into the colonists' kind of gravest fear.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jefferson was always worried about a
revolution of the wheel of fortune.

That is, we're on top now,
but this thing can spin.

- He was just trying to
scare the colonists...

- Exactly.
- Into not rebelling.

- Exactly. He was... He
was playing the race card.

He was using a threat
of... of slave insurrection

to scare white colonists
into standing down.

While all this is
going back and forth

between Governor Dunmore
and white patriots,

he's issued this threat
to free the slaves,

slaves are listening,
they heard his threat.

They came and knocked on the
door of the Governor's Palace

and said, "Here we
are, man. You need us.

"We can be great fighters.

All you got to do is
promise us our freedom."

And guess what Governor Dunmore
said to those enslaved people?

What did he say?

- "Get the hell out
of here." NIKOLE: Mmm.

- That was an idle threat.
You know, we all do that.

We threaten to do things.
"I'll take you to court."

It was an idle threat.
He... he didn't mean it.

But when enslaved people
continued to self-emancipate

and presented
themselves to Dunmore,

he saw an opportunity
to shore up his ranks

by declaring he would
free any enslaved person

who agreed to fight
against the colonists.

So eventually, this threat that Lord
Dunmore makes becomes a reality,

and he actually does issue,
uh, an emancipation order,

that we now call
Dunmore's Proclamation.

Dunmore issued that
emancipation proclamation,

November 1775.

And that emancipation proclamation
infuriated white Southerners,

'cause this building is supposed to
symbolize white rule over Blacks,

and now the guy inhabiting that
building has turned things upside down

and is leading Blacks
against whites.

So you have this situation

where many Virginians and
other Southern colonists,

they're not really convinced that
they want to side with the patriots.

And this turns many of them, um,
towards the Revolution, is that right?

If you ask them, it did.

The record is absolutely clear.

I can't think of a point that I could
make about the American Revolution

where I could compile as many quotes
as I can from white Southerners

saying how furious they
are at Governor Dunmore.

Some of them said,

"There's... There's no other
expedient you could have thought of

that was as likely as this
to turn us against you."

Further enraging
the white colonists,

Dunmore created the
all-Black Ethiopian Regiment

who fought the patriots at
The Battle of Kemp's Landing

just outside of
Norfolk, Virginia.

And the Ethiopian Regiment won.

By the fall of 1776,

approximately 1,000 enslaved
people had joined Dunmore.

This understanding of the role

that Black people played
in the Revolutionary War,

why is there so much pushback?

This is just historical
fact, so why...

Why do we have so much pushback?

- Yeah. It... It astonishes me as
well, because it just seems so obvious

that both economically
and politically,

enslaved people were at
the center of the story.

I would say... I think if...
If slaves had been as passive

as I was taught they were in
Virginia schools in 1960s,

then the Revolution might not
ever have come to the South.

And you can't win the
Revolution without the South.

The way we
are taught our history

has a lot to do with how we are
supposed to think about our democracy,

how we think about who built it and
who should benefit most from it.

When I was a student in Iowa,

for the most part, the America
revealed to me in my education,

in museums, and in
monuments, was a white one.

And yet my world,
my neighborhood,

my friends, the aunts and uncles

who crowded our home for
barbecues and card games

was largely Black.

I searched desperately
to find our people,

to find myself in
the American story.

Except for the occasional passing
reference to our enslavement

and the Civil Rights Movement,

the story of America that
I learned made it seem

that Black people had not contributed
much of value to this land.

And so for most of my life,
I never felt fully American.

But then, when I was
a high school student,

I took a Black Studies course.

And Mr. Ray Dial, the only
Black male teacher I ever had,

gave me a book that told
the story of the year 1619,

the beginning of
American slavery.

I remember feeling angry that
no one had bothered to teach us

that Africans and slavery were
here before the Mayflower,

and then empowered

that our lineage as Black
Americans went back that far.

I was 15 years old

and had no idea how those emotions
would fuel a quest for the truth

that would shape my life,

a quest to understand a country

that the history we had been
taught did not, could not explain.

- Please welcome back Pulitzer
Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones.

As the
project's success grew,

it became a target of
conservative politicians.

- You know, the... the
whole project is a lie.

The 1619 Project

and the crusade against
American history

is toxic propaganda.

The backlash
had real consequences.

As of October 2022,

there were at least 33
state-level efforts,

as well as a federal bill,

seeking to restrict educators
from teaching The 1619 Project

or discussing systemic racism.

- Nevada groups, they want
teachers there to wear body cameras

so they can monitor
what they are teaching

to make sure that they're not
teaching things like The 1619 Project.

1619-related curricula banned
in Texas, banned in Florida.

And while the backlash to the
project may seem surprising to some,

the truth is, the fight to include
slavery and Black contributions

in the full story of America

mirrors the fight to include Black
Americans in democracy itself.

And that is a fight that
stretches back centuries.

Through 250 years of slavery,

Black Americans
resisted their bondage.

They continually plotted,
rebelled, and escaped.

Some of those who ran away

found safe haven in
Brooklyn's Plymouth Church,

a place often called the Grand
Depot of the Underground Railroad.

In 1860, then-presidential candidate
Abraham Lincoln prayed there

before giving a campaign speech

outlining his plan to limit
the expansion of slavery,

an issue that would
define his presidency.

So in 1862, a year into the
Civil War, President Lincoln...

This is before he issues the
emancipation, but he's considering it.

Lincoln invites a delegation of
five Black men to the White House.

What is this meeting
about? What happens?

- So Lincoln is
contemplating emancipation.

And so what he believes

is that if he can convince Black
people to leave the United States,

then it'll be easier to get the white
majority to accept emancipation.

So what Lincoln does
in that conversation

is try to guilt, insult,
do anything he can

to persuade the Black folks
who were there in that meeting

to leave the United States.

And what they are very clear on is
that they are not going to leave.

Robert Purvis says,

"Sir, this is our country
as much as it is yours,

and we will not leave it."

And Purvis isn't alone on that.

The vast majority of
the Black population,

the free Black population even,
said, "No. We're not going anywhere."

Frederick Douglass said, "We were with
you when you arrived on these shores.

"We leveled your forests.

"Our blood, sweat, and
tears are in this soil.

"We've been with you,

and we are going to be
with you in the future."

Instead of promising to
leave the land of their birth,

Black men pushed Lincoln

to let them sign up to
fight in the Union army.

And desperate,
Lincoln finally did.

As W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, "The
North had to call in the Black men

to save the Union, abolish
slavery, and establish democracy."

And amid the ruin and devastation
of this nation's deadliest war,

in an era known
as Reconstruction,

this country finally began to try
to redeem the grave sin of slavery.

These newly emancipated
people pushed lawmakers

to pass the 13th, 14th,
and 15th Amendment:

Abolishing slavery;

guaranteeing equal
protection under the law;

and citizenship not just for Black people
but for any person born on American soil;

and making it illegal to deny
voting rights based on race.

In this moment of rebirth,

Black Americans embraced democracy
and its promises of equality

with the type of fervor

that comes from living so
long with no freedom at all.

What they want
after slavery is over is justice,

and they go about building it.

They knew that if Black people

enjoyed all of these rights,
privileges, and protections,

then all Americans would
be able to enjoy them.

And that's the beauty of
who they were as a people.

- We know how the story
of Reconstruction ends.

A deal is struck that if, um,

Rutherford B. Hayes
can get the presidency,

then he will agree to withdraw
the federal troops from the South.

And in doing so,

he leaves these
newly freed people

to the mercy of their
former enslavers.

Can you talk about, um, what happens in
that period when Reconstruction ends?

- And so what we see
over the next 25 years

is whites in the South
constructing the new order.

And this new order will
be what we call Jim Crow.

But they can't construct it until
they disfranchise Black men,

which is what they spend the
next decade trying to do.

White men in power passed
new allegedly race-neutral laws

to get around the
15th Amendment.

Grandfather clauses said

you could only vote if
your grandfather had,

but most Black men's
grandfathers had been enslaved.

Slavery had ensured

most Black people entered freedom
illiterate and impoverished,

so white officials instituted
literacy tests and poll taxes to vote.

I... I think it
can't be overstated

how much violence Black
Americans were subjected to

during that period.

So we saw that
during Reconstruction,

but we also saw that in 1898, in
places like Wilmington, North Carolina,

where the democratically
elected government is overthrown

by white mobs rampaging
through the city.

And they had held on to the
promise of Reconstruction

for much longer than
anyone else had.

And it has a chilling effect.

Not only massacres
like Wilmington,

but also widespread lynching
throughout the region.

And lynchers are not
targeting Black people

who are committing
crimes against them.

They're targeting Black
people who are successful,

who are prosperous,

and who won't stand down and
submit to white supremacy.

This picture is
essentially for Americans,

people who call
themselves American.

It begins with the painful
and hard-felled assumption

that we are not an
island of perfection,

but in fact, a land of
imperfection in an imperfect world.

Negroes are trying
to register to vote

and help to change the situation
that they're existing under today.

Help to bring about
democracy in our land today.

The system
of racial apartheid

that was created after
Reconstruction was so savage

that Nazi Germany would
take inspiration from it

for its own racist policies.

But Black Americans
would never stop fighting

to democratize America.

Black Americans have always
believed in this nation

with a faith it did not deserve,

risking and losing our lives,
generation after generation,

to make this country what
it already claimed to be.

And nowhere was the fight
for democracy more dangerous

than in my father's home
state of Mississippi.

Well, hi there.

MacArthur Cotton was born
just three years before my father

and about 50 miles away.

I was
born in April 23, 1942.

I was a person who
championed the underdog.

So it was just a natural thing that
I would want to be in the movement

because, uh, the
choice to me was,

you know, accepting
things like they were.

And that wasn't
much of a choice.

This is one of the pictures
that a friend sent to me

when we were in SNCC.

This... This should be about '63,
I believe, when it was taken.

In the fall of 1962, a group
of students arrived in Greenwood.

They came to organize
the Negro population,

to spread the word
of the new gospel.

They called themselves SNCC:

the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee.

In the 1960s,

Greenwood, Mississippi, became a
battleground for voting rights.

At the time, Leflore County
was more than two-thirds Black

but only five percent of the
Black voting-age population

was registered to vote.

And in a state where nearly
half the population was Black,

there was not a single Black
elected official in the State House

or in U.S. Congress.

Thank you, Mr. Cotton,
for meeting with us today.

Let's start by just telling
where we are sitting.

Where... Where are we right now?

- Well, we are in
Leflore County Courthouse

in Greenwood, Mississippi.

So how... How does
a young Black man decide

that he's going to get involved
with the Civil Rights Movement here?

- Well, uh, I was always taught,
uh, civic responsibility.

It was a civic thing to
do. The right thing to do.

- I had no interest in being
a slave, so. - Mm.

MacArthur Cotton was a student working
in the Tougaloo College Library

when the legendary civil
rights activist Bob Moses

recruited him to join

the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee,

also known as SNCC.

At the time, SNCC was making a big push
to register Black voters in the South.

Cotton eventually left Tougaloo

to work full-time in the
Civil Rights Movement.

He sacrificed his college
degree to fight for democracy,

eventually becoming
a field secretary

for the Greenwood voter
registration project.

You know,
in the back of my head,

I thought that we probably would
be able to register people to vote.

I didn't expect, uh, the kind
of opposition that we had,

even though I knew it
wasn't going to be easy.

But, uh, after a while, we found
out it was almost impossible.

- Why was it that so few Black
people were registered to vote here?

What type of opposition
did they face?

- State-sponsored terror.

You know, just straight out,
they... they killed people

for trying to register.

I read some
of Bob Moses' reports,

and he said that Greenwood was
a hardcore resistance area,

that almost no progress
had been made here

after at least two years or
more of intensive organizing,

and even the SNCC
offices were bombed.

They were burned. MACARTHUR:
Of course. Burned.

They were shot up.

Um, and you're
entering into that

to try to... To reinforce
the local efforts.

We expected that.

We knew that, uh, there would be bombings
and shootings and... We knew that.

You know, we always hoped
that it didn't happen to us,

but we knew that that
was a possibility.

So we could have retreated,

which we didn't feel
like that was an option.

- So...
- You say that so calmly now.

Were you... Were you
calm about it back then?

- Probably even
more so. - Really?

- Yeah. You know, when
you're 18 or 19 or 20,

- you're invincible anyway.
- Mmm.

You think
about what you want to do.

You don't think about
the consequences as much

even though, you know, we were
intelligent enough to know that,

you know, there were terrorists
and all kind of opposition.

Cotton and his fellow
activists came up with a strategy

to overwhelm the system.

In June of 1963, they turned
up at the county courthouse

with a group of local Black
residents who dared register to vote.

Our idea was to, you
know, maybe double that the next day,

and on and on,

until we got some kind of
concession from somebody.

Okay.

And what happens?

So you... you go in, you march
up here, and what happens?

So we got to...
As they began to go in,

I think they took
a couple of them in

and then they say, uh, "Well, we're
closing the courthouse for lunch,

so y'all gotta get out."

So we... we refused
to, uh, leave.

So they, uh, arrested us.

After the Sheriff's office
arrested Cotton and the other SNCC leaders,

they were fined and initially
sentenced to four months of hard labor.

But instead of staying
on the County Penal Farm

for their full sentence,

partway through, they were
transferred to State prison.

So they take you to Parchman?

Was one of the worst
places to be in America.

Right. That's
what it's supposed to be.

And I think part of that, you know,
they inst... instill fear in people.

And, uh, I think it kind of
bothered them that we didn't care.

That didn't scare you at all?

- Well... Well, you know, really,
we, uh, we were living in Parchman.

We couldn't st... We couldn't
stand up to the courthouse.

We couldn't walk down the street
without being harassed, so.

You know, it wasn't... It
wasn't a big change, you know,

from being inside or outside.

- Talk about Parchman. What...
What was your experience there?

- We were on... on death row.

- So they housed you with
the... - Yeah.

With the death row inmates?

Right, that's
where we were kept.

Activists faced extreme
violence and deprivation at Parchman.

Cotton told me of the
brutality he experienced

after he asked for food that
another inmate had refused.

They hung me,
uh, stretched me, uh,

at the top of my tiptoes

and hung me, uh, to
the bars by my wrists,

you know, put handcuffs...

So they tortured you.

- Of course. That was
the name of the game.

They might would've let me stay there
until, you know, until I perished.

I don't know. But
just so happened,

the International
Council of Churches,

uh, came

to investigate.

So their representatives
came and saw me hanging.

And of course, by then, my
clothes was full of feces and all.

Maybe that... that was the straw
that broke the camel's back.

And they were able
to bail us out.

- I'm so sorry. I don't...

It's okay.

You should be glad.

You should be glad that
we had to sacrifice

to... to do what we had to do.

'Cause... somebody had to do it.

And, hey, I'm still here.

- We've seen the Voting Rights Act of 1965
gutted by a conservative Supreme Court.

We've seen, in the last year and a half,
more voter suppression laws passed.

I just wonder, how do we think about
the challenge for democracy ahead,

understanding that history,
and what's your fear?

Mmm.

That I won't be here
long enough to see it.

That's one thing, but, uh...

It...

Well, for people who
were paying attention

and understood,

the opposition
never quit fighting.

So actually it wasn't that much
change in the mind or heart.

So, just, you know,
the struggle continues.

And it... it will always

be a fight.

Democracy is a fight.

Just weeks after his
release from Parchman prison,

MacArthur Cotton set on his
way to the nation's capital...

We are requesting all
citizens to move into Washington.

where he joined
a quarter million people

from across the country.

Go by plane, by
car, walk if necessary.

We are pushing for jobs,
housing, desegregated schools.

This is an urgent request.

Please join. Go to Washington.

On that hot
August day in 1963,

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke

to Black American commitment
to the democratic process.

There will be
neither rest nor tranquility in America

until the Negro is granted
his citizenship rights.

Two years later,

after countless activists
had been violently beaten

and many others murdered,

Congress passed the
Voting Rights Act of 1965,

forcing the South to stop
violating the Constitution

by denying Black people
the right to vote

and enforcing the century-old rights
promised in the 15th Amendment.

Black Americans, just as they
had right after the Civil War,

helped expand legal equality
and democracy for all Americans.

With the balance of
Congress once again at stake

in the 2022 midterm election,

Mary-Pat Hector was trying to resolve
the issue at the Cosby Spear Towers

that was routing residents
to another polling location

about 20 minutes away.

- I mean, Hapeville...
That just seems ridiculous.

And there's another
polling site right here at the...

Back at headquarters,
Helen Butler worked the phones

with the Fulton County
election board representative,

who confirmed the County
had made a mistake.

- All right. Thank you.
So I'll get it taken...

So they were in
the wrong precinct?

Yes.

- Okay. All right.
- Okay. Okay.

- Okay. Thank you.
- Mm-hmm.

Hey,
Ms. Helen, you talked to her?

Yes.

Uh, what's the update?

- They're voting a regular
ballot on the voting machine.

If a poll worker tells them that
they have to vote provisionally,

ask for the poll manager,

and the poll manager
will get it corrected.

All right.
Thank you so much, Ms. Helen.

So, I... I can leave?

You can leave.

Okay. Thank you very much.

All right. Okay, bye.

They can. They
can. Yep. Everything is good.

So I'm about to leave and
go back to the office.

That's a win. Small wins count.

All right. Very...
Small wins really do count.

So thank you. I
really appreciate it.

Yeah, so myself and
some volunteers went over there,

knocked on every
door in that building

that was impacted by
the error this morning,

just to make sure all
of the residents knew

that if they were turned around
that they can come back and vote.

And while June Williams
finally cast her ballot,

the mistake felt
all too familiar.

Speaking with Miss June

and hearing how she's actually been
a part of the Civil Rights Movement

and actually lived
in those times,

uh, where it, in her own
words, feels like a repeat.

But to see her go the extra mile

and say, "I will sit out
this door until seven o'clock

because I'm going to vote."

Um, I think she really charged my
generation to have that same tenacity

and do what needs to be done

to correct whatever wrongs
that may be happening.

For nearly 50 years,

the Voting Rights Act that
protected Williams' generation

was reauthorized with bipartisan support
from Congress and the White House.

- So Bush actually signed
the last reauthorization

of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

I got a personal invitation
from George Bush.

That's... The red ticket
is my ticket to the event.

We were out on the lawn
of the White House.

And in the middle, we
got to take our picture,

our little Georgia delegation.

So it... it is us there,
uh, enjoying the moment.

But of course, we know Shelby
v. Holder changed that in 2013.

After President Obama
won a second term in 2012,

the Supreme Court,

determining the nation had
largely moved on from the racism

that had once made the
Voting Rights Act necessary,

overturned key
protections in the law.

The decision invalidating a
section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965

deeply divided the justices,

but it rested on
a simple premise.

As Chief Justice
John Roberts said,

"Nearly 50 years later, things
have changed dramatically."

Following the
ruling, by the 2016 election,

14 states had enacted
new redistricting plans

or new restrictions on voting

that, before, would have required
preapproval by the Justice Department.

And just like the laws
passed during Jim Crow,

these new laws were
allegedly race-neutral.

But the intent was clear.

For example, a
federal court found

North Carolina's voter ID laws
had targeted Black Americans

with, quote, "almost
surgical precision."

And the attack on the
democratic process

only escalated in the
wake of the 2020 election.

We are
witnessing an attempt

at the greatest contraction
of voting rights

since the end of Reconstruction

and the beginning of Jim Crow.

Since 2021,

lawmakers have passed at least
42 restrictive voting laws

in 21 states.

And in Georgia,

one of the most heavily
Black states in the nation,

Republicans passed the
Election Integrity Act

that created a long list
of voting restrictions.

After a pandemic-era election saw the
use of mail-in ballots in record numbers,

the law shrunk the number
of ballot drop boxes

and added ID requirements
for absentee voting.

Data shows Black Americans, on
average, wait longer than white voters

to cast their ballot

And yet, the law criminalizes
passing out food and water

to those standing
in line to vote.

And finally, the
law allows anyone

to legally challenge the right of
their fellow citizens to cast a ballot,

and created a new hotline
to accept anonymous tips

to report voter fraud.

So we are here today, uh,
to talk about democracy.

Can you talk about the state of
American democracy right now?

- Well, the state of American democracy
is really on life support in my opinion.

You had the insurrection
of January 6th.

You have all of these draconian,
uh, policies being implemented,

uh, to prevent people from being
able to select their representatives

and to have a voice.

The takeover process where they have
total control of the outcome of elections,

uh, that kind of thing is
really putting us in peril.

I think, you know,
Coretta Scott King once said,

like, "Freedom is... Is
a never-ending process.

"Struggle is never really won.

You win it and earn it
in every generation."

And, um, one thing that Mrs. Helen often
says is, "This is our Selma moment."

And so while I know our democracy
is in a very, very bad place,

I feel like we've
been here before.

- And really, if you look at
the Civil Rights Movement,

it wasn't won overnight.

It was a drawn-out period of time
before we could get that right.

We are just really a
resilient community.

Uh, we have fought.

And who is the "we"?

We, Black people.

Black people are the...

- And Black women.
- And Black women, yes.

We are resilient.

We can make it happen.

- And we can't give up.
- Yeah.

Uh, I'm a fighter.

And, you know, if you don't believe
in something that you would die for,

then you really
don't believe in it.

It has to be so
incredibly frustrating

that you convinced people to
have a stake in their democracy,

that their vote matters.

How do you return to
those people again in 2024

and say, "Yes, they didn't
protect your rights.

"They're not
respecting your agenda.

"They pass more laws that's
gonna make it harder for you.

Do it again because
your vote matters."

- It is a hard message, but
it's a necessary message.

We can't tell them, "Give up."

I can't tell anybody to give up.

You can't
tell 'em, "Give up"

because you don't want
'em to stay at home,

because that makes
it even worse.

So it's always the
lesser of two evils.

Quite honestly.

It's the lesser of two evils

until you can get in

and have a true majority.

Black American
freedom struggles

have laid the foundation for every
other modern rights struggle.

The laws born out
of Black resistance,

first during Reconstruction

and later during the
Civil Rights Movement,

guaranteed equality in law
and banned discrimination

based not just on race but on
gender, nationality, and religion.

When other marginalized
groups demand their rights,

they sue under the equal protection
clause of the 14th Amendment,

including when same-sex
couples used it

to win their constitutional
right to marry.

We have made tremendous progress
toward realizing our democratic ideals,

and yet the ongoing fights
over voting and elections

show that a significant
portion of our country

still does not
believe in democracy

if democracy requires sharing
power with multiracial citizens

in our multiracial nation.

I think a lot about
what it will take

for a true democracy to
take shape in this country.

And I worry about how
the nation will respond

to what is clearly
a democratic crisis.

So you both are, uh,
political scientists

who study how democracies
work around the world.

But you guys argue that this
backsliding of our democracy

really began as
early as the 1980s.

Can you tell me more about that?

Well, the Civil
Rights Revolution

and the increasing
diversification of our society

with large-scale immigration

triggers a dramatic transformation
of the party system,

where, by the
early 21st century,

the Republican Party was an
overwhelmingly white Christian party

in a society that was much
more diverse than ever before.

And it was a party that concentrated
the vast bulk of white Americans

who were uncomfortable
with racial diversity.

And that's the base that
Trump eventually taps into.

But that's a slow movie. That
doesn't get invented by Trump.

Trump is a product of that,
more than a cause of it.

- In order to understand
our current moment,

it's actually useful to look
back to the 19th century

and the first effort to
create a multiracial democracy

after the Civil War.

And this was a major effort.

All these Constitutional Amendments
to guarantee voting rights

failed by 1876, at the earliest
by the 1890s, certainly.

And what this meant is that
voting rights were now excluded

for African Americans
in the South.

By the time we get to the 1960s,
their second effort at this,

and the question of
political equality

for all groups and all
individuals of all backgrounds

is now on the political table.

It's explosive, and there's
a backlash against it,

just as there was after
the first attempt at this.

And so we're living through
that moment right now.

And I guess the question is

to what degree will we make the
same mistakes we did last time?

White people are being targeted.

- Joe Biden's five million illegal
aliens are on the verge of replacing you.

- You also had people that were
very fine people, on both sides.

- They openly campaign
for racial reparations

and bigoted policies
that target white people.

- So, what are some of
the warning signs we see

when we have politicians that are
working to threaten democracy,

or that have become a
threat to democracy?

- In our book, we identify
four warning signs.

If a politician says they
won't accept election results

or challenge a
democratic constitution.

- We will never give up. We will
never concede. It doesn't happen.

You don't concede when
there is theft involved.

If they condone or
threaten violence in their rhetoric.

Usually they go on and tend to
support this kind of stuff in action.

Those are people that
love this country.

- You know, if you didn't
know the TV footage

was a video from
January the 6th,

you would actually think it
was a normal tourist visit.

Do they threaten to
assault civil liberties?

Do they threaten the
press, for example?

- The Republican candidate allegedly
throwing a reporter to the ground.

And then number four:

Do they challenge the
legitimacy of their opponents?

She shouldn't be allowed to run.

Chris, she should never have been
allowed to run for the presidency.

Why doesn't he show
his birth certificate?

Because I think it's a terrible
pall that's hanging over him.

Today, we once again find
ourselves in a chapter of America's story

where some in power are
eroding our democratic norms.

One day after
top Senate Republicans

decidedly dug in their heels

saying they will not
even hold hearings

or even meet with the
president's nominee.

After President
Obama was blocked

from appointing a Supreme Court
nominee in his final year of office,

President Trump
appointed three justices,

creating a conservative
Supreme Court

that may soon strike
down equality measures

established during the
Civil Rights Movement.

One that addresses the legacy of slavery
and Jim Crow in higher education.

The conservative
majority appears ready

to roll back 40 years of affirmative
action on American campuses.

And another that
undercuts fair elections.

- The Supreme Court hears
arguments this morning

on a significant case focusing on
race and voting rights in Alabama.

With Black voter
registration at historic highs,

Black leaders say Alabama
is using redistricting

to dilute the power
of their vote.

In the 2022
midterm elections,

nearly 200 candidates who did not accept
the results of the presidential election

ran for office.

And on the state level,

we saw armed poll watchers
intimidate citizens in Arizona.

And in Florida,

Governor Ron DeSantis created
a special election police force

to go after voter fraud

even though study after study showed
widespread voter fraud wasn't occurring.

- So if a political party or a politician
tries to tilt the playing field in a way

to make it so that it's really so hard
for the other side to win elections,

that basically the other
side can't win elections,

often doing this legally
by changing election rules,

by changing how election
districts are drawn,

changing who counts
the elections.

- And these are things that we're seeing
happening in the United States right now.

Yeah.
Um, look, we're at a point

where the bulk of the
Republican Party at this point

did not accept defeat in 2020

and has not clearly, unambiguously
rejected the use of political violence.

And so to us, that
is a warning sign

that one of our major parties is no
longer fully committed to democracy.

And when one of two major parties
is not committed to democracy,

your democracy is imperiled.

This is my first
time doing this, so...

Yes. Okay.

- You go in to the right and those
tables and those chairs there.

All
right. Thank you.

So we're watching
the ballots come in,

and we are watching Fulton
County count the ballots,

um, of all of the people
within this community.

Seeing all of the work that
organizers have put forth

to combat voter suppression
in this state, um,

really has me amped up,
but it also has me scared.

It has me scared about what's
gonna happen either way.

Um, this election
takes place tonight.

Either way it goes, it has me
scared about what's to come.

I think history
will show in the future

that the demographics of the
United States will be different.

People of color are
gonna be the majority.

And I'm hopeful
that at that point,

then we'll have the true
democracy that we want.

- That's maybe why they're
fighting so hard right now.

- I think that's... I think
you hit the nail on the head,

is that they're fighting because
they see those numbers changing.

So, to me, when we get
that demographic shift,

I think we'll be better

at not having to work
so hard for this.

- I wanna be able to look back and say,
"I did this so that you didn't have to."

You know, my grandfather did
a lot. Ms. Helen did a lot.

She integrated, uh, the
University of Georgia, right?

And so, you know, she can say,

you know, "I did this so that
Mary-Pat didn't have to do that."

Um, and that's... That's
what legacy is all about.

As a woman in my 40s,

I am part of the first
generation of Black Americans

in the history of
the United States

to be born in a society

in which Black people had
full rights of citizenship.

Yet, in that brief span of time,

despite continuing to face
rampant discrimination,

and despite there never
having been a genuine effort

to redress the wrongs of slavery

and the century of legal
discrimination that followed,

Black Americans have
made astounding progress,

not only for ourselves but
also for all Americans.

Our struggles and strivings have
made America more fair and more just.

And as much
democracy as we have,

it has been born of
Black resistance.

In other words,

the very people who were never
supposed to be a part of our democracy

have played the most
pivotal role in creating it.

So what if America understood,

finally, now, after 400 years,

that Black people have
never been the problem

but the solution?

But that solution came
at a tremendous cost,

and so much of it has
been borne by Black women.

There's a direct link
to maternal mortality today

and the challenges that women
had giving birth during slavery.

What did she tell you?

- She said, "Baby A
doesn't have a heartbeat."

And I couldn't understand.
I'm like, "I don't..."

I'm like, "I don't understand."

The legacy of slavery
is so ingrained in our system,

and we don't even see it.