- [last lines]
- Mac: [narrating] People think they want wealth or power, but that ain't it. People just wanna know their lives matter. That *they* matter. Having some control over your own life, that's worth fighting for, no matter the cost.
- [first lines]
- Jim: [narrating] My pop always told me to watch the scales. Said the world will always find a way to cheat the working man. I met Mac McLeod in 1933, and I witnessed up close the price of real change.
- Title Card: At the height of The Great Depression, nearly one quarter of Americans were without jobs.
- Bolton: [standing on the back of his truck] Gentlemen, ladies, come in, come in. Listen, please. Hear what I have to say, all right? This price cut pains me as much as it pains you. With the market as volatile as it is, a fella should count himself fortunate to garner a respectable wage like I offer you. Right?
- London: [in the crowd] Yeah, respectable like hell! What? Yeah! Man can't live on a dollar a day!
- Title Card: Across the nation, countless workers engaged in battles life these in the ongoing fight for fair treatment. In 1934 alone, over 1.5 million workers took part in over 2,000 labor strikes. Most ended in failure, with many of the strikers arrested, wounded, or even killed. But out of these struggles arose change.
- Title Card: In 1935, congress passed the Wagner Act guaranteeing workers the right to unionize, collectively bargain, and strike. In 1938, President Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act establishing the federal minimum wage, overtime pay, and the forty-hour work week.
- Mr. Anderson: You know what your problem is? You never own anything. You never planted any trees, watched them grow, touched them with your own hands. You bastards never owned anything. You never put your hands in your own dirt.
- Mac: With respect, we never had a chance to own nothing.
- Mac: We gotta remember what the stakes are. We're trying to change things for millions of people. Anyone who has to take a shit deal because the boss says so. Anyone who gets taken advantage of because they don't own something. That's who we're fighting for. It's not about Lisa, it's not about you and me. If anything, it's about Lisa's kid, and what kind of world he's gonna grow up in. And if we're thinking about ourselves or chasing glory, then we're not doing it right.
- Mac: Guys like that... They think they want wealth or power or security. None of that matters. They just want to feel like their lives matter. Like *they* matter. They want to think that they have some control over their lives. That's it?
- Jim: [to the group about about Mac] He was one of you. He fought, and he fought for you. And he never wanted anything in return. He gave his life for you. And he gave his life for a cause bigger than you. For an idea. The idea... That guys like you, and guys like me... Deserve dignity, and deserve respect, and deserve a fair share of what we make with our bare hands. And those bastards... They shot him. They shot him for believing in something bigger than himself. And they shot him, because now, they think that we'll all shrivel up and go home like a bunch of meek dogs. But we ain't gonna do that.
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