[00:00:22.800] [music] [00:00:18.157] This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. [00:00:27.840] [audio skip] Group of United States Army veterans [00:00:29.880] marches to Washington and demands the bonus promised them. [00:00:34.000] The United States Army repelled [audio skip] of Colonel Douglas MacArthur. [00:00:40.400] Tons of food are dumped into rivers while hungry people look on. [00:00:46.000] A new fraternity is born. [00:00:48.280] The brotherhood of the newly impoverished [00:00:50.840] and those who have known nothing else but poverty. [00:00:54.400] Still, the [audio skip] is confident. [00:00:56.057] So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. [00:00:56.057] This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive, and will prosper. [00:01:16.280] And in 1932, two American women are born, each to her own special fate. [00:01:23.600] The year of their birth is bleak. [00:01:26.160] A reeling nation can make no guarantees [00:01:28.600] of happiness for the children of the Depression. [00:01:32.120] President Roosevelt's words are brave— [00:01:34.880] nothing to fear but fear itself— [00:01:38.000] but are they also true? [00:01:39.786] [music] [00:01:59.880] Children grow up. [00:02:01.480] The Depression is a bad memory to an automated, computerized, space age nation. [00:02:08.640] The year of her birth, 1932, was a year of breadlines, shuttered, deserted offices. [00:02:15.000] The wind whistling through farmhouses, a gray company of migrant workers [00:02:19.760] shuttling back and forth across the continent. [00:02:24.520] But in thirty-five years, Mrs. Hedgepath [00:02:27.440] has moved only thirty-five steps [00:02:29.680] from the house where she was born in Durham, North Carolina. [00:02:34.720] The times have changed. America the beautiful is America the rich. [00:02:41.320] Once we were poor, but no longer. [00:02:43.960] The Depression is history and history we all know is dead stuff. [00:02:48.920] Now only thirty-four million Americans are poor. [00:02:52.000] Only thirty-four million citizens of our [00:02:54.200] United States lack the means for the American way of life. [00:02:58.071] [music] [00:02:58.081] Come on kids. [00:03:02.960] Being poor in a wealthy nation, [00:03:05.320] she and her family are out of step with the times. [00:03:08.286] [music] [00:03:15.640] So Arthur is a shoe repair man. He works in a shoe shop. [00:03:19.360] He likes to be his own boss. [00:03:21.200] He likes to stand on his own two feet. [00:03:24.600] He has an awful lot of willpower [00:03:26.440] and he'd much rather just do everything he can for himself. [00:03:32.760] Hannah is a typist at a recreation center after school. [00:03:36.900] I don't think she can pinpoint what she really wants and what she want to do. [00:03:41.000] She's anxious to be on her own. Make it, I think. But, [00:03:47.840] I don't know if that's all of it or not. [00:03:51.000] Irene is one person you don't have to worry about. [00:03:54.320] Irene will always take care of herself [00:03:56.440] cause she will work and she knows how to handle a dollar. [00:04:00.480] And that's the least of my worries, Irene. [00:04:06.240] Lionel. He's very spoiled and he's a mama's baby. [00:04:08.880] And he's quite young yet. [00:04:11.240] So you can't very well tell what may happen with him. [00:04:19.120] My Audrey. She's a little independent to a point. [00:04:21.880] She's more or less quiet, much quieter than Lionel. [00:04:26.920] I don't know exactly how you would describe Audrey, [00:04:27.920] cause she's a sweet child. [00:04:29.186] [radio newscast playing] [00:04:40.671] Are you going to revival tonight? [00:04:42.114] Yeah, [?] is a very good speaker and I would like to hear him. [00:04:45.614] That looks pretty good. [00:04:45.614] Wipe your mouth Audrey. [00:04:49.471] Give Lionel a napkin. [00:04:55.600] Ok kids, let's go before you're late for school now. Come on. Come on. [00:05:08.320] Everybody loves Kim. [00:05:10.440] Kim is a water head baby [00:05:12.680] and nobody's ever tired of doing anything for Kim. [00:05:16.240] Even when the children complain about other [00:05:18.200] things you ask them to do do, you can always say, "Do something for Kim," [00:05:22.200] and it's no fuss. [00:05:23.720] As a matter of fact, they were glad that he belonged to us [00:05:28.920] instead of to some other family that wouldn't take care of him [00:05:31.040] Oh, boy, look at this mess. [00:05:32.157] Well I guess I'd better get ready to go to work before I miss that bus. [00:05:50.071] Okay. [00:05:53.760] A statistic— [00:05:55.000] latest census figures show that over thirty-four million Americans wake up each day in poverty, [00:06:00.000] about one out of every six Americans. [00:06:04.760] In a burst of concern for these Americans, [00:06:07.440] Congress passed laws providing for a war on poverty. [00:06:12.960] But already there is a backlash. [00:06:15.800] If they wanted work, they could get a job. [00:06:18.480] Just a giveaway program. It's just for the Negroes. [00:06:20.160] Wasting taxpayer's money. [00:06:20.560] I know one shift-less son of a gun who lives right around the corner. [00:06:25.120] Why don't they stand on their own two feet like me? [00:06:26.720] Giveaway. Welfare, welfare, welfare. [00:06:29.880] But who are they talking about? [00:06:32.840] My father got killed when I was about four years old and mama died when I was ten. [00:06:37.320] My aunt took care of me, you know, financially. [00:06:39.440] She bought all my clothes and things, but I lived in my grandmother's house. [00:06:45.280] And I felt like I was a problem enough to everybody [00:06:47.440] so getting married would solve the part of the problem, which was a [00:06:52.280] childish way of thinking about it. [00:06:54.040] Well, that's the way I saw it, you know. [00:06:58.200] Being fifteen years old and [00:07:01.200] there was a lot of problems and a lot of things on my mind, [00:07:02.080] too much for a fifteen year old, I suppose. [00:07:05.720] And what looked good, [00:07:07.560] getting married looked like the best solution. [00:07:10.280] And I took that solution. [00:07:11.514] [music] [00:07:18.960] And the doctor said he wasn't going to walk at all, but he did. [00:07:20.600] And he told him and he told him, and he said, "You got to be crazy." Said, [00:07:23.320] "I'm going to live to be a hundred and I'm going to walk." [00:07:26.160] But he got up and walked as if he had given up on [?]. [00:07:30.600] I'm sure he wouldn't have walked because it took everything he had in him to do so. [00:07:34.880] [music] [00:07:39.760] The other child of the Depression. [00:07:42.271] [music] [00:07:57.000] Unlike Mrs. Hedgepeth, [00:07:58.920] she's kept pace with an increasingly prosperous country. [00:08:02.960] Born in comfort, she remains secure. [00:08:05.680] House, car, and a maid. [00:08:12.400] Ok Nadia. There's Fanny. Let's go. [00:08:14.360] These two American women live in different worlds, [00:08:17.840] but their lives touch at this one point. [00:08:20.686] Hi Fanny! Hi. [00:08:22.040] We may be a little late tonight. Nadia has to go to the dentist. [00:08:25.160] Well that's alright as long as you're back in time for me to go to church meeting. [00:08:28.729] We'll do our best. Bye, buddy. [00:08:39.400] You going to wave bye-bye to mama? [00:08:42.320] Wave bye-bye. [00:08:42.320] Wave bye-bye. [00:08:51.400] Would you like to go in and make a cake? [00:08:52.960] [music] [00:09:59.434] [telephone rings] [00:10:03.640] Hello. [00:10:05.920] Yes. [00:10:11.560] Oh, yes. [00:10:12.960] I was going to come by the store, but I haven't had the chance. [00:10:18.400] I don't have your money today, but I'll bring it up there Monday if it's okay. [00:10:27.040] Yes, but I had [00:10:29.040] to see the doctor for a check up and I'm a little short right now. [00:10:37.320] Well, I can bring it on Monday. [00:10:42.640] Alright, you'll get your money on Monday. [00:10:46.840] Bye. [00:10:46.371] [humming] [00:10:53.280] Hello? Is this Mrs. Hedgepeth? [00:10:52.286] Yes. This is Brown's Furniture. [00:10:54.050] I believe your payment was due day before yesterday. [00:10:56.480] I was going to come by the store— [00:10:57.480] Well, we like to keep our books in order [00:10:59.680] and you agreed to pay us each month by this day. [00:11:02.600] Yes, but I had a— Well, I know you've been pretty regular [00:11:05.000] with your payments so far, but we don't want anything to go wrong. [00:11:08.720] I can bring it on Monday. Just make sure you do. [00:11:10.520] Alright. You'll get your money on Monday. Bye now. [00:11:14.400] If they wanted work they could get a job. [00:11:17.600] Just a giveaway program. It's just for the Negroes. [00:11:18.480] Wasting tax payer's money. [00:11:19.040] I know one shiftless son of a gun who lives run around the corner. [00:11:24.240] Why don't they stand on their own two feet like me? [00:11:24.240] Welfare, welfare, welfare. [00:11:26.480] I can remember now thinking back to when when I was little mom used to always say, [00:11:31.440] do whatever you can for yourself [00:11:33.160] and then when you're stranded and can't do anything [00:11:35.360] other people don't mind helping you some, you know, [00:11:37.120] but when you just sit around and wait [00:11:40.240] for somebody to do everything nobody wants to help you, you know. [00:11:43.240] Author James Agee wrote of the poor woman, [00:11:46.760] "How is it to be calculated the number of times she has done these things, [00:11:51.800] the number of times she is still to do them, [00:11:55.000] the accumulated weight of these actions [00:11:57.280] upon her and what it has made of her mind and of her heart and of her being?" [00:12:04.520] Four rooms and a bath, that's about it. [00:12:07.400] And we pay the rent by the week. [00:12:09.760] There's a lot of things wrong with it. [00:12:12.080] The floors are not much good, the steps about to fall down, [00:12:15.040] and the pipes leak all over the place, and the roof leaks. [00:12:18.000] [laughs] [00:12:20.440] Needs painting. The wallpaper is hanging off. [00:12:21.829] Oh boy, when its cold, boy, it's just about as cold in the house as it is outside [00:12:30.000] because you're gonna sit there and feel the air coming in on you. [00:12:30.200] Roaches, mice. [00:12:35.800] Place is swamped with them, you know. Kill ten and ten more show up. [00:12:37.680] Matter of fact, you go out at night [00:12:39.400] and you run over those big ones out there like kittens running around in the backyard. [00:12:44.080] [music] [00:12:59.080] Well, in the daytime I like to look at soap operas. I like those things. [00:13:04.920] Crazy, confusing, but I like to look at them. [00:13:07.080] Doctor, you've got to tell me the truth. [00:13:09.040] Now, just relax, Mrs. Hall. You must relax. [00:13:12.980] Is it serious, Doctor? [00:13:14.280] Well, there have been some complications in your case. [00:13:17.560] Oh, God, I knew it. [00:13:19.080] Now, now, it's nothing— [00:13:20.600] it's nothing terminal, [00:13:23.320] but I do think we should operate as soon as possible. [00:13:26.840] Oh! [00:13:28.120] Now, now, it's a simple operation, a very simple operation. [00:13:31.571] [music] [00:13:40.880] About a year and a half ago, I had to have an operation for cancer. [00:13:46.240] I was out of work for about five months [00:13:49.440] which made it pretty hard around my house [00:13:51.280] because I was more than half of the support of the family. [00:13:55.440] And my husband had to try to make ends meet with what little he had. [00:14:00.560] And I had to go back to work a couple of months before I was really [00:14:04.280] able to go back and before the doctors wanted me to go back [00:14:07.960] because it was pretty hard watching him struggle and trying to make ends meet [00:14:12.990] and it wasn't helping me any to sit there [00:14:15.000] and worry about things that I couldn't do anything about [00:14:18.000] so I felt it would be better if I had come back to work. [00:14:22.960] But what about welfare? [00:14:24.560] Aren't the poor getting a free ride on welfare, paid for by our taxes? [00:14:31.640] But welfare probably wouldn't help us at all with our financial problem then. [00:14:34.880] By the end of the five months I was out of work [00:14:37.960] they had come up with say twenty-three dollars a month [00:14:40.440] they would give us. [00:14:42.200] That was the week before I came back to work [00:14:44.600] which, it didn't make any difference anymore then. [00:14:49.520] Cleanses your complexion to its youthful glow. [00:14:51.000] You will find this new cream so refreshing [00:14:53.120] and useful that you will notice the difference almost immediately. [00:15:03.000] A sharp, bright, freezing January day [00:15:06.880] we welcome our young president. [00:15:09.760] The world is very different now. [00:15:13.120] For man holds in his mortal hands [00:15:16.720] the power to abolish [00:15:19.360] all forms of human poverty [00:15:22.560] in all forms of human life. [00:15:24.800] A new president, different Americans. [00:15:29.960] But still, the cruel problem. [00:15:33.000] Who speaks for me, [00:15:36.080] who speaks to me? [00:15:38.560] From an ocean of prosperity [00:15:40.440] they get scattered drops if they're lucky. [00:15:44.480] He, too, cared. [00:15:46.750] His first official act as president was [00:15:49.000] to put into effect a food stamp program for starving Americans. [00:15:53.360] He cared. [00:15:55.960] If a free society [00:15:58.760] cannot help the many who are poor, [00:16:01.960] it cannot save the few who are rich. [00:16:04.800] He cared. [00:16:09.160] Now he is gone and the slow journey of those thirty-four million Americans continues. [00:16:13.357] [music] [00:16:21.080] Yeah, Audrey likes to come over here. [00:16:23.350] She says the reason that she can't get a house [00:16:25.400] like Nadia's is because her daddy's crippled and [00:16:27.920] he can't make money like Nadia's daddy makes money [00:16:31.040] so she can't get a house like Nadia's. [00:16:34.360] Yeah, she figured that one out for herself. [00:16:36.857] [music] [00:17:22.673] [car horn honking] [00:17:33.240] Hey Fanny, I got my tooth fixed. [00:17:34.160] Okay. Your daddy's inside waiting for you. [00:17:40.360] At 5:30 each working afternoon, [00:17:42.920] Mrs. Hedgepeth rides home in a sports car. [00:17:46.360] She has spent the day in a pleasant house [00:17:48.760] paying for her time there with the sweat of her body and another day of her life. [00:17:54.080] Each evening, she returns to her own home to perform the same tasks. [00:17:58.720] this time for her own family. [00:18:02.000] Inbetween, there is space to calculate [00:18:04.840] the odds on whether her children will repeat the life she has led. [00:18:11.680] Now, Audrey did have to repeat the first grade even though she did go to [00:18:17.080] a head start class. [00:18:18.160] It helped her to be more independent and it did teach her to concentrate some but, [00:18:24.120] I don't think she got as much out of it as I expected her to. [00:18:27.040] And in a way maybe [00:18:28.440] that wasn't enough time to give her the foundation she needed for the first grade really. [00:18:32.714] [music] [00:18:39.240] The Youth Corps was a great help for Hannah because [00:18:42.920] she managed to get a job, which otherwise she might not have gotten. [00:18:47.920] This has been a big help to her and to me, but even though she is working at it [00:18:57.920] still not enough money she can save up to, you know, help send her to college. [00:18:59.520] [music] [00:19:02.886] [dogs barking] [00:19:17.457] Bye, Fanny! [00:19:36.720] On the day you were married, [00:19:38.480] James Agee wrote, "A key is turned with a sound not easily audible. [00:19:44.760] And you were locked between the stale [00:19:46.640] earth and the sky. And there is nothing conceivable [00:19:50.040] for which it can afford to stop, short of your death, which is a long way off." [00:19:56.160] [music] [00:20:30.067] The Lord has brought me from a mighty long way! [00:20:35.000] Through trouble the Lord has brought me! Through heartaches the Lord has brought me! [00:20:43.029] I wonder do you know what I'm talking about? Have I got a witness? [00:20:47.129] Yes! [00:20:47.971] I said, have I got a witness? Yes! [00:20:51.100] Oh, yes sir! [00:20:53.000] [music] [00:21:02.600] The church is, for this woman, more than [00:21:05.160] just a promise of a better world to come by and by. [00:21:08.543] I've got to move my furniture around— [00:21:11.280] In the church basement [00:21:12.020] she meets with her friends [00:21:13.520] in a neighborhood council to work for a better life here and now. [00:21:17.560] They have been promising us since [00:21:20.360] last winter [00:21:21.520] they were gonna do something about it, but nothing has been done yet. [00:21:24.240] And I've even called the inspector and talked to him. [00:21:28.360] And he knows what a cruel mess [?] [00:21:32.640] And he keeps saying, this was about three weeks ago now, [00:21:36.880] "Something is going to get on the way now." [00:21:38.680] I haven't even seen nobody bring the shingles out there, [00:21:40.080] bring an armful of shingles out there, lay out there, [00:21:43.320] at least make me think they going to do something, you know. [00:21:44.720] Nothing, not anything. [00:21:46.720] Neighborhood councils are important in themselves. [00:21:50.480] They are equally significant for what they suggest— [00:21:53.960] that the poor can identify their problems better than anyone else, [00:21:58.120] that they are capable of offering helpful solutions to poverty problems [00:22:02.880] that, given time and encouragement, [00:22:05.240] the poor will work together for a better life. [00:22:08.440] In short, neighborhood councils suggest [00:22:10.960] that the poor can be assimilated into democracy. [00:22:13.957] [children laughing] [00:22:21.386] Alright, go to sleep. Go to sleep now. [00:22:23.714] You want your doll? Yeah. [00:22:27.086] Now go to sleep. [00:22:28.971] [music] [00:22:53.800] What you live with and see and touch is real and silent. [00:23:00.240] Sometimes the voices of promise intrude. [00:23:03.071] [music] [00:23:08.160] Let me assert my firm belief [00:23:08.160] that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. [00:23:14.440] If a free society [00:23:17.560] cannot help the many who are poor, [00:23:20.800] it cannot save the few who are rich. [00:23:23.040] And these enemies too, [00:23:26.120] poverty, disease, and ignorance [00:23:29.280] we shall overcome. [00:23:33.960] The promising voices die [00:23:36.040] and you are left again with what you have. [00:23:39.320] And with this, you must somehow get by. [00:23:45.280] There have been lots of downs [00:23:46.560] and I've felt like throwing up both hands and walking out on everything. [00:23:50.960] But looking at the children can always change that. [00:23:55.440] And the fact that they have not given up [00:23:58.280] and they are trying to do what they can to make things better. [00:24:02.000] You know that kind of helps a little. [00:24:03.400] Between the children and the fact that I believe in praying, that kind of keeps me going. [00:24:08.880] To me, there's a lot of consolation in prayer. [00:24:10.600] Maybe the situation hasn't changed [00:24:12.160] in a hurry, but you feel better about it and you're more [00:24:15.440] able to cope with what's in front of you, you know? [00:24:20.400] That's the way I see it. [00:24:21.320] I don't have enough sense to give up trying. [00:24:23.360] I keep hoping anyway. [00:24:26.480] I keep hoping. Maybe one day, who knows? [00:24:29.471] [music] [00:24:55.760] Work hard and obey the law [00:24:57.600] and the benefits of the American way of life are yours. [00:25:01.560] This promise has failed for Mrs. Hedgepeth [00:25:04.200] and for the millions like her [00:25:05.760] who are locked out of the rewards our society offers. [00:25:10.760] The poor have lost faith in promises. [00:25:13.240] Some sink into a dead despair. [00:25:16.360] Others destroy with indiscriminate fury [00:25:19.040] the rewards they can never have. [00:25:21.880] Still others, like Mrs. Hedgepeth, [00:25:24.080] live in ragged houses, eat cheap food, earn less, and die sooner. [00:25:31.400] Our nation has the means to enable our citizens to live in dignity, [00:25:36.640] but so far we have offered tokens, a handful of programs, a trickle of money, [00:25:42.480] sporadic bursts of concern, but not so far the will required to eliminate poverty. [00:25:50.200] She doesn't yet trust the anti-poverty movement. [00:25:53.560] She and other millions of working poor suspect that it is just another promise. [00:25:59.280] So, Mrs. Hedgepeth reserves judgment and waits. [00:26:04.120] And while she waits, she works. [00:26:07.680] And although she works, she remains poor. [00:26:11.080] [music]