Transcript: Labor, for example–which from the early 1920s through at least the early 1960s was a major force for change in this country, in fact, one could argue there wouldn't have been the Civil Rights victories without a strong Labor Movement behind it. But Labor had its own issues with race and always had. We like to put a face on it and say no, Labor was bringing the workers together, but it wasn't. There were pockets in which it happened, but in the 1950s, Labor was targeted by forces who felt threatened by people organizing laborers. And the age old rule in this country is to use race to destroy the movement. Use race. And in this way, what began to happen as I understand history, is that you wanted to make the laborers see themselves as white, and see themselves invested in keeping a certain arrangement in place. 

And unions –because they had been so much a part of their own movements, and civil rights–began to be seen as enemies. And there was a concerted effort to destroy union membership. And it wasn't until the Reagan Administration that that was fully developed and now we have a nation that's hardly organized into unions. But race has always been the Great Divide. And we have to understand even as unions did great things, they didn't necessarily treat people of color as equals. Now there are examples to the contrary, but there was a very concerted effort to bust up unions and to make them less of a force. And how do you do that? You do it by emphasizing individual liberties, not collective. Move from a collective redress of grievance–see, that's the movement–to individual expectations, goals. So when white workers begin to have individual goals and ambitions for themselves and their families, then that whole Union solidarity–which is always what changes this country–begins to break up.