the real history of the black panther party? plus, backlash to black lives matter. and a horrible, no-good pre-season for roger goodell. plus, the future means never having to say "you're hired." good morning, i'm melissa harris perry, and today many of you are likely enjoying all the reasons we've come to look forward to labor day. you know, discount shopping, barbecues, three-day weekend. but for more than a century of the observance of the holiday created by the labor movement, it's also hard to remember the hard-won rights we've come to enjoy in the marketplace, such as sick leave and a 40-hour work week. all things we've begun to take for granted between employer and employee. it's a relationship set up to be

mutually beneficial for all parties involved with the employer reaping the benefits of the employee's work and the employer sharing in the employee's success. it's clear the employers have gotten the better end of the deal. during that time, profits reached successful levels, yet despite a jobless rate of 5.1% on saturday is lowest since it began, there is little who reaped the rewards of those profits. growth remains stagnant. and taking into account cost of living increases, it's declined since the recession ended. that recovery is driven in part between uneven relationships between the worker and the boss, a relationship that has become less mutually beneficial and a lot more like friends with benefits. in his book "the fissured

workplace," he describes when large companies employed many workers to a moderate economy and the employees reaped all the rewards of that relationship with as few responsibilities to workers as they could manage. more and more corporations are moving away from the business of employing people and outsourcing the work to someone else. employees aren't in the business they're working for, they're independent contractors or temps or freelancers who work for third party agencies or franchise owners or vendors. it's a business strategy that we argue has allowed companies to keep costs down, profits up, and the reputation of the brands untainted. it's left some workers with little recourse in the face of shrinking paychecks, eroding benefits and unsafe workplaces. according to a 2014 report, evidence suggests that the ambiguous legal status of many workers in contracted jobs is one of the central factors driving lower wages and poor

working conditions in our economy today. conflicts arising from these employment arrangements that played out in the headlines as workers have pushed to clarify that kam by -- ambiguity. ride sharing who are employees but are sharing on expenses. hotel workers who were outsourced and last week got a boost from the national labor relations board decision that redefined the employer-employee relationship. the board ruled that a waste management company qualifies as a joint employer, along with the contractor it hired to manage staffing. so now a union representing those workers can bargain directly with the company, a change which could have direct implications for companies that insulate themselves from labor disputes behind a franchise model, and indirectly, could

force employers to face up to the responsibilities of what it really means to be a boss. joining me now are dorian moore, roosevelt institute, fellow and msnbc contributor and also host of "nerding out." policy editor for think process and contributor to the nation magazine. and kevin hassett, the chair in american politics and culture at the american enterprise institute. thank you all for being here on this labor day weekend. >> thank you for having us. >> dorian, i sort of feel like i just want to be like "go." how much are these new realities reflective of a workplace shift that we may not even quite have our hands on yet in terms of what it will mean a decade, two decades from now? >> you're started off by saying we're talking about the future of work, but the future is here now. this development has been long in the making over the past 25 to 30 years. in fact, that labor board rule

you mentioned is a rule that stopped the joint employer status, meaning that the parent company like mcdonald's was off the hook since the '80s for any of the working conditions at any of its franchisees, and many may wonder what role should mcdonald's play in terms of the work conditions? is it really just the franchi e franchisees that has the power but mcdonald's determines everything else, every big mac, every shake. but the working relationship, they can say, we have nothing to do with that but we have everything to do with everything else. this is the norm of an economy of legal distance of the employer which does put safety conditions in the workplace from people who used to be called employees that are now being called a range of other things like independent contractors. >> the franchisee model is one, particularly when you say

mcdonald's is a multi-million-dollar corporation, people go, oh, i see why that's a problem. but i do feel like the libertarian says we put it down because we look at who we hire, but if you talk about an independent contractor for an employer who doesn't maybe want the rest of it. maybe give me the other side of it. >> you're going to tell me to go, but it may have a different meaning. the fact is that i think there are kind of two levels of things that we can address. the first is the franchise model, if you think about it, it is a model that one of the benefits from the point of view of the investors is that it's very hard to organize unions in a franchise type model because you've got 10 million mcdonald's, each one owned by a different guy, and you have to organize them one by one under the old law. so there is that kind of thing.

then there is also you hire a plumber and the plumber is unionized, but you're a firm that isn't unionized, then how do you deal with that? i think the former one, it's pretty clear this ruling will make it easier for labor to organize places like mcdonald's. for the latter one, i think it could have negative effects in the sense that to the extent those relationships are influenced by collective bargaining, then it might mean that people start hiring if their businesses start hiring non-unionized plumbers. i don't know if that's going to be possible in new york city. >> the plumbers have this worked out. but it is interesting, this question in part of organized labor. i wonder if part of what we're seeing in this teacher workplace which we exist in already is already related to a weekend labor union. so if we looked just at public opinion polls, back in the early 1950s, we have sort of the height of 75% of americans supporting labor unions, dipping down below 50% in 2010-11.

although it's up a little bit, only about half of americans are even thinking they're a good idea. >> so few americans are actually in a labor union. maybe plumbers are pretty unionized, but most of us are not. most of us have no contact with the labor movement. i think it's worth going back and remembering how we got here in the first place. temp workers were an idea that was introduced at the height of labor power to sort of get around it. it was sold as jobs for, like, kelly girls and women in the homemaking pin money who didn't need the protections that the men at work needed, and then i think corporations sort of got hold of it and they were like, well, look, we can get around all these protections by having this contingent labor force, we can size up, we can size down as much as we need, and that's becoming more and more the norm. but it's breaking that relationship we have between you go to work, you have one employer, they give you benefits, that's sort of how it works to you go to work, you don't get any benefits from

them, maybe you get them somewhere else, maybe you doept g -- don't get any benefits. we've come into this model where it's not necessarily guaranteed. >> i am not completely without some interest from the employer perspective on this, right, that you have a limited pot of money, you want to make some hires and then you have to look at that fringe on top, some of which is about taxes, and sometimes if you're trying to be a good employer, is about benefits. what about instead of employer-provided health care, there was just health care provided that walked around with us because we were citizens it seems like that would make hiring cheaper, yet so much of the private industry actually oppose the kind of health care reform that might move it that direction. >> that's absolutely right, and the system of our benefits tied to an employment status is it was an accident of history in many ways. it happened at a particular political juncture in the '50s when unions actually cut -- it was during the world war ii era, post world war ii era where

unions couldn't negotiate over wages necessarily, so they decided to negotiate over benefits, pensions, health care, then it became the norm, and we then became the only industrialized democracy with this system where you got your health care benefits or any kind of social provisions through the workplace, not through the state. so that system is essentially eroding. but there is another aspect. you're right to point out, if you're classified as an independent contractor, you doe don't have access to those benefits. you also don't have access to employment protections. you actually could be discriminated against much more often with no legal recourse if you're classified simply as an independent contractor versus an employee. we see this, for example, with the difference between a fedex driver and a ups driver. a ups driver is an employee, they have benefits but also employment protection in the workplace. fedex was classified as independent contractors. so no workplace protections whatsoever, no minimum wage, no overtime, no anti-skr hianti-din

laws. there is something unfair about that especially when it's an arbitrary employer who decides, you're an independent contractor, you're not an employee. >> when we get back, we're going to be very clear about this. when we come back, we'll talk to the lawyer who is taking over uber in what could be a class-defining lawsuit. do you like the passaaadd?

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it's the rear end event. year end, rear end, check it out. talk about turbocharging my engine. you're gorgeous. what kind of car do you like? new, or many miles on it? the volkswagen model year end sales event ends on labor day. so hurry in to your local volkswagen dealer today. i'm a senior field technician for pg&e here in san jose. pg&e is using new technology to improve our system, replacing pipelines throughout the city of san jose, to provide safe and reliable services.

raising a family here in the city of san jose has been a wonderful experience. my oldest son now works for pg&e. when i do get a chance, an opportunity to work with him, it's always a pleasure. i love my job and i care about the work i do. i know how hard our crews work for our customers. i want them to know that they do have a safe and reliable system. together, we're building a better california. okay, when you request a ride from uber, is the person who comes to pick you up an employee of the company or an independent contractor who uses the uber app as a tool to work for themselves? that's the question at the heart of a lawsuit brought by three california uber drivers who say they are employees and entitled to reimbursement from the company for their expenses. on tuesday a federal judge granted class action status to the lawsuit, extending it to a

limited class of drivers who contracted directly to uber and have not driven since may of 2014. uber plans to appeal the decision, and in a statement released this week, a spokesperson for the company said, while we are not surprised by this court's ruling, we are pleased it has decided to certify only a tiny fraction of the class the plaintiffs were seeking. indeed, one of the three named plaintiffs will not qualify. that said, we'll most likely appeal the decision as partners use uber on their own terms, and there really is no typical driver -- the question question at issue. joining me from vermont is shannon lis-wardien, the attorney representing uber. it's nice to have you. >> thank you. >> help us understand a little bit more what this lawsuit is about. >> well, we have challenged uber's classification of drivers as independent contractors, and in doing that, uber gets to avoid all the costs and responsibilities of being an employer, making sure that the drivers have just basic

protections under the wage laws, access to workers' comp if they get injured, unemployment if they lose their jobs, the right to join together and bargain collectively if they want to form a union. >> so part of how uber responds to this is saying, and did a survey where they say, look, our drivers want the independent contractor model, they prefer it. 87% say the main reason they drive on the uber platform is to be their own boss and set their own schedule. how do you respond to that? >> well, there are a cup ouple problems with that argument. the fact they set their own schedule doesn't make them independent contractors. there are cases where workers have set their own scheduled and are determined to be employees. we know people like the flexibility. that's the big reason people have been taking on uber as a way to make some money, but that doesn't make them independent contractors. uber could have them have that flexibility as employees, so that's just really a false argument uber is making, that if

they become employees they have to work on some rigid schedule. the other problem with uber arguing, oh, people like to be independent contractors, is that the law doesn't look at frankly what people like. there may be some people, migrant farm workers, who would like to be employed and be paid less than minimum wage, but the law puts basic protections in place and doesn't allow employers to get around the laws by saying people like this. and also when we talked to a lot of those drivers who signed statements for uber saying that they liked the system, and we asked them, would you like to be reimbursed for your expenses and have these protections, they said, oh, yes, yes, we would. they didn't understand that's what the lawsuit was about. >> sure. shannon, stay with us. i want to come with you on this, kevin. uber has become kind of a political flashpoint, but when you think about it from a clear labor perspective, is uber kind of the direction of where labor companies are going, and we want to see it flourish, or is it the great evil thing that is making

this good relationship between employer and employee? >> in terms of the labor markets, then, one of the biggest powers you have over your boss is the threat to leave. if your boss knows you're wanot going to leave, they can be abusive and you end up with roger goodell as your boss. if service costs are minimized, that's really good for the labor market generally. >> isn't it the idea if there is a tight labor market? in other words, if the employer believes it can replace you swiftly, easily and with low transportation costs, that threat to leave is less powerful. >> most employers want to keep their employees, so things like uber as an abstract is great because they give workers more power, they can see that it's easy to get a job over there. we'll see in the future that people relate to things like uber than they do traditional

employment, and the reason that happens is there is not a lot of fixed cost. there is not a big lump of cost that an uber employer faces when they bring a person on. the thing i'm concerned about with litigation like this, and i don't know the law, but the thing as an economist that concerns me, if you just increase the fixed costs of someone coming on to uber, it will look more like a regular job where it's easy to move over there, it's easy to stop doing it, could be reduced. >> weigh in on this, please. >> i think it's a bit of a controversy. like you're saying, it's a little bit easy to say, if you want to go, fine, go, we'll just replace you. the unemployment rate is still very low but there is still a lot of slack in the labor market. there is still a lot of people who will beat down the door to come into these jobs, and i think that's driving a lot of people into these jobs. i think a lot of people are going sinto part-time, temporar work who would rather have a full-time job, and i think there are a lot of people in the labor

market feeling the same way. this is more of a contingent force rather than voluntarily picking up a couple hours here and there. >> shannon, i want to come to you on this in a second, you talk about worker preferences. obviously the main alternative to uber are taxis which also have a kind of troubling history around shutting out folks in the labor market as well as, we know, for example, in places like new york, long histories around the question, for example, of racial profiling when actually providing their service. i guess i'm of two minds on the uber of it all. >> well, taxis raise -- that's sort of a whole different ball of wax. taxi drivers are also working under very difficult circumstances, and i frankly disagree with the independent contractor classification for taxi drivers, too. but i think what we can recognize a big difference between uber and taxis is that uber has a lot of control over its drivers that the taxi companies simply don't have or

don't want to have because they don't want to be found to be employers. uber has, among other things, a rating system where after every ride a customer is given an option to rate their driver, and i don't know how many people realize that unless drivers keep it very close to a 5.0 rating, a lot of places 4.6, 4.7, they can be dropped from the system, terminated, essentially. that keeps a lot of control over the drivers on a minute by minute basis. they're being evaluated, they're being controlled. if they do anything that uber management is not happy with, uber can fire them at will. and that's a big portion of the control. that's a difference between uber drivers and taxi drivers. >> which may be a great customer service practice but also makes blase the idea they are employees. thank you for being here. when we come back, we're going to talk about the unsung

heroes of the labor movement, and we hardly even know their story. [ piercing sound ]

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since 1974, an amendment to the fabe labor standards act excluded workers hired from the basic rights of minimum wage and overtime pay. that all changed last month when an appeals court delivered a win to president obama, reviving a labor department regulation to extend the minimum wage and overtime pay to most home health workers. a reversal of a trial course decision against the regulation earlier this year. it's just a major victory in a decades-long fight for recognition of the labor force composed primarily of women who performed domestic work. in a new book entitled "household workers unite," she makes the effort of why african-american women played a key role in that struggle. alison writes that these women engaged in overt, collective and

public forms of opposition. they were vibrant milgd-aged or elderly black women, very often mothers and grand mothers, who took multiple risks, made enormous personal sacrifices and offered powerful critiques of the status quo. i loved the book. it revises what we mean by labor. how about if we started the labor movement here rather than so often as we tell it? >> the labor movement has premised on a large-scale manufacturing sector, male-defined work, and very often have we seen historically is women's work, whether it's domestic work, service work. the women work have done has really been excluded from those models. the labor movement itself historically has not organized domestic workers. they were not considered part of the labor movement. but when you actually look at the history, and you look at the history of these african-american women in the 1960s and '70s who organized,

they developed a movement of 20,000 women across the country who demanded a transformation in the occupation of domestic work, and who were ultimately successful in bringing domestic work under federal minimum wage protections in 1974. >> so i want to ask a little bit about this in connection to the conversation we've been having about employers and independent contractors. because so much domestic work happens in private households and the employers are individual families as opposed to corporations, how does that shift what happens when we start talking about the ideas of rights and responsibilities of employers and employees? >> absolutely. it's a very important connection there, because domestic workers for the most part have been considered independent contractors, right? they've been considered women who choose to work jobs when they want to, and the argument is that they're independent contractors and they don't fall under the federal minimum wage

protections. but, in fact, what this movement has done is it has developed models of organizing that brings together workers who are employed by different employers, right? so one worker, in fact, could have five different employers, or they might be working part-time. and their model has been one that's premised on state-based benefits as opposed to employer-based benefits. and so, for example, the federal minimum wage law, it doesn't matter which employer you're working for, you're still entitled to those rights. and we've seen, even in the contemporary moment, there is a vibrant domestic worker rights movement that exists right now, and they've been advocating the same sort of thing, state bills of rights that are offering protections for workers regardless of who you're working for and regardless of whether or not you're a member of that organization, regardless of whether or not you're a member of the union. so the idea is all workers ought to be protected.

>> i am reminded, brice, of this point that there is a current domestic workers kind of activism in part because alicia gardner, part of the labor movement, also works for domestic workers. >> this work force is overwhelmingly women, its majority spoem is people of cold it's providing the work that we are in need of. mothers are going into the work force and they need somebody to care for their children. the population is aging. we need people in the home to help them age with dignity, and i think the outsource will start to outnumber supply. these movements could change that dynamic. they're pushing to make this be considered work and to be work that at least is given dignity and minimum wage.

>> thank you to brice covert and thank you for the book. it's lovely. we turn to politics. the poll out this morning shows a major shift in the crucial early state of iowa. (wolves howling) when heartburn comes creeping up on you. fight back with relief so smooth and fast. tums smoothies starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue. and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. tum-tum-tum-tum-tums smoothies, only from tums.

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make sure the germs they bring home don't stick around. use clorox disinfecting products. you handle life; clorox handles the germs. a new nbc poll out this morning shows democratic candidate bernie sanders gaining ground in the state of iowa. 38% support hillary clinton, 27% support sanders, and vice president joe biden, who has not decided whether to enter the race or not, received 20% in a hypothetical democratic caucus. compare that to clinton's 49% and sanders' 25% in july, and

clinton's lead in iowa has dropped by 13 percentage points. the poll released this morning also shows sanders with a 9-point lead over clinton in new hampshire. joining me now from iowa, nbc news correspondent kristin welker. kristin, hillary clinton has several campaigns in iowa today. how has this news responded to the sanders surge? >> the campaign has consistently said it expects a competitive primary. having said that, there is no doubt this e-mail controversy is starting to take a toll, and part of the problem is this drip-drip-drip factor. secretary clinton gave an extensive interview to our own andrea mitchell, of course, on friday, and we learned that hillary clinton paid, and she acknowledged, that she paid a staffer to maintain her e-mail. he's the same staffer who

refused to speak to a c congressional committee last week. it's the drip-drip-drip that keeps her from turning the page, but she's going to do that this weekend. she's going to talk about labor, jobs in an effort to move beyond this e-mail issue. looking forward, melissa, it is going to be a very busy 48 hours. we expect a lot of candidates will be out on the campaign trail over this holiday weekend, and there will be a lot of eyes on vice president joe biden who you also mentioned is doing quite well in that poll, even though he hasn't announced yet, he is going to be marking labor day in the battleground state of pennsylvania. there is a big labor day parade there, and of course, he is still considering a run of his own. melissa? >> thank you to nbc's kristin welker in newton, iowa. >> thank you. funeral services were held saturday for a pivotal leader in the civil rights movement, amelia boynton robinson. she was one of the organizers of the march from selma to

montgomery in 1965 to demand voting rights. and she was among the protesters beaten unconscious on what became known as bloody sunday. the photograph of her taken after the attack appeared in newspapers around the world and helped galvanize the movement, eventually setting the stage for the passage of the voting rights act. 50 years later, she is back on the pettitte bridge with president obama to mark the observance of that pivotal march. amelia boynton robinson, a long-time civil rights activist, died last week at the age of 104. among the people who attended her funeral, lore rhett ta lynch, who said, even as she faced opposition and oppression, hatred and brutality, she waged a steadfast campaign of inclusion and hope that

culminated in a voting rights act, one of the most important and impactful pieces of civil rights legislation in american history. and one that as an attorney general, an attorney general who would not be in this role today but for her efforts, i am honored to protect and enforce. it's quite alright... you know what? we want to make a deal with you. we're twins, so could you give us two for the price of one? come on, give us a deal. look at how old i am. do you come here often? he works here, terry! you work here, right? yes... ok let's get to the point. we're going to take the deal. the volkswagen model year end sales event ends on labor day. so hurry in to your local volkswagen dealer today. i brought in some protein to help rearrange the fridge and get us energized! i'm new ensure active high protein. i help you recharge with nutritious energy and strength to keep you active. come on pear, it's only a half gallon.

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can a business have a soul? can a business be...alive? the pro football season kicks off this season with the pittsburgh steelers taking on the new england patriots, and we can point to some clear winners and losers. one of the winners of the season was taylor who beat out everybody for the starting quarterback position. while rg 3 had a terrible pre-season, moving his position and facing rumors he might be cut from the washington team. the individual who may have had the worst pre-season of all, the league's leader, roger goodell. on thursday goodell was rendered practically powerless when a

judge ruled in favor of tom brady, reversing his four-game suspension over deflategate. it was the first time it was overturned in court leading to the obvious question of whether goodell has any authority over players. the pre-season buzz wasn't about the action on the field, it's about will smith. >> i found a disease that no one has ever seen. repetitive head trauma chokes the brain. >> the nfl does not want to talk to you. you turned on the lights and gave their business boogeyman a name. >> you're going to war with a corporation that owns a day of the week. >> no proof was presented today because there simply isn't any. >> they have to listen to us. this is bigger than they are. >> the film is titled "concussion" and while it doesn't hit theaters until christmas, the trailer has already been viewed millions of

times on line. will smith plays ben alua, medical doctor and professor who performed a ct after performing an autopsy on a player. cte is a brain disease caused after repetitive concussions. it is believed to cause memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, aggression, depression and dementia. the head injury issue has been dogging the nfl for years, and a few years back, some players sued the league claiming the nfl actively hid the danger of head injuries. settlement was reached earlier this year, and recently, some players, including chris boreland, one of the top players, has quit the league citing concern over their long-term health. "concussion" did debuting right around the time of nfl playoffs.

joining us are anthony alessi, associate clinical professor of neurology and orthopedics at uconn. from las vegas, a former linebacker of the new york giants, and a member of the players association. i want to start here with a statement from the nfl, and they say here, we are encouraged by the ongoing focus on the critical issue of player health and safety. we have no higher priority. we all know more about this issue than we did 10 or 20 years ago, and as we continue to learn more, we applied those lernarnis to make our game and players safer. is the game and the players safer, based on what we know? >> good morning. i do believe that the players are safer. it doesn't mean that the work of the players union or the work of the national football league is done. but have we taken steps, basically, by this union to try

to make the game safer? the answer is yes. i'm happy to see tony alessi. i asked tony to be on our mac white committee. he's one of the doctors who advises us on how to make the game safer. i think when we do make steps to make the game safer, it does, but we're not there yet. >> let me ask you, doctor, what are the legitimate things that actually make playing football in this case safer? >> it's kind of interesting. it really starts, ironically, throughout medical school and all my residency training in the '80s, i don't think i heard the word concussion five times. now you can't even open a magazine or turn on the tv without hearing it. >> you can't sign your kid up for eighth grade girls' field hockey without signing a form about it. >> exactly. i think what's made the game safer has been d. smith and the nfl pa. that collective bargaining agreement when dee called me to

work with them, was really a change in football. the care committee i serve on with the nfl pa is really responsible for putting neurotrauma specialists on the sideline for every game. these are hard-fought battles. isn't it amazing that we're talking about safety in the workplace at this time? i mean, really. it's just been crazy. >> for me it's such an interesting connection in part because we think of labor unions so often being about wages, so people think why do millionaires need a union? but this feels like the tooansw to that question. >> this is literally life and death. this goes to a quality of life question for the players and retired players after they finish their careers, and but for the union, if we just said, oh, the nfl will look out for the players, this would not even be on the table, we wouldn't be talking about this, there wouldn't be a game-changing movie coming out, so to speak, in december with will smith, as you mentioned, that will shed

even more light on this long-term problem. but yes, if you think of the role of unions in particular and professional sports unions, we don't have a problem with those folks, usually, right? baseball, nba, football -- >> because they're getting a big check. >> henry, let me come to you on this. the way that dorian just framed this is -- i'm sorry, harry -- the way dorian just framed this is this idea of life or death. if this is a life or death question, should we even be playing, for example, little league football? should kids be engaged in this kind of game? >> well, i think the significance of this movie on dr. bennett amalu, he is the one that is the hero here because he is the one who dug deep enough within the soul of mike webster to find out what was ailing him. and he gave it a name, and he was banished, he was demoralized by the national football league

as to what he found. i think with this information that he has brought to the forefront, i think everybody can see now that there are ramifications that come with playing the game. if you get dinged, if you get concussed, those things don't necessarily go away, and they can affect you at the present time, but definitely down the road as you get older. i've seen so many former players who are dealing with traumatic brain injury and the effects of concussions that, you know, it's a commonplace thing now, but all these players who are now dealing with these issues, we play throu played through them because nobody told us we were at risk of neurological damage. we knew we could get hurt physically. we knew we might need to have a knee replaced, a hip replaced, whatever, but in terms of the brain, you only got one. and once you damage your brain, you may never be the same person again. >> so let me come back to you on

that, because i remember when the sort of idea was that the knees were the big question, and that as you got orlando, thelde were men who were going to have mobility problems and it was sort of a tradeoff. what we now know about brain injuries and the likelihood of them and the extent of them, is it -- are nfl players getting the kind of, both in this moment, are they cutting the right deal given that risk, and in the long term, are they cared for in a way, given how wealthy people are becoming from their labor who never have to worry about whether their minds or bodies will be sound in 20 or 30 years? >> that's a great question, melissa. our job as a union, and i'm glad to be on a show that recognizes the power of labor unions, is to make sure that our men and their families understand the risk. that's number one. second, having a guy like tony and other doctors who have been on our maki white committee, make sure we allow the science

in the medicine to make the decision about what players should do, how we practice and how we play. and then lastly, knowing that there will be injuries, we've changed the collective bargaining agreement to make it easier for players to get compensated for their injuries and easier for them to get long-term benefits if they do have the injuries. but i think the key thing here is, we pride ourselves on being a labor union that cares just as much about health and safety as we do about wages. our job is to make sure that the signs of the health care dictate the day. >> i want everybody to stick with me. i'm going to have a few more words on this topic when we come back, because i think for many of us who genuinely love football and may have spent last weekend drafting a fantasy team, we have to think about what this all means for our role, when we come back. n a flu shot? when it helps give a lifesaving vaccine to a child in need in a developing country.

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friday a 16-year-old high school football player in

louisiana died after suffering an injury during the team's season opener. his name, tyrell cameron, and the actual cause of death from that injury is still under investigation. but everybody is kind of talking about it this morning, doctor, and it's this reminder again that for young people, and i think for all of us who love the sport, it's not just the nfl but it's all these levels before it. are there some more practical things we ought to be doing? >> absolutely. melissa, when we think of it, there are only 1800 players in the nfl, but there are 3 million youth and middle school players building up to high school. we know the brain is not fully mature at that level. our best guess is really that it matures really around the age of 14, when they get to high school, where there is better medical attention and things such as that. so we really should be focusing on youth players and trying to find out how to make that game safer. >> should it be touch until high school? >> i think you need to do something like that, but you

need to build skills. the most successful players in the nfl didn't play youth football. the mannings, they never played youth football, because people think youth football, this is the key to an nfl career. often it's the end of an nfl career. >> let me come to you on this, harry. i'm interested in this idea of the choices that we make as people who are watching the game, who love the game, who want to see the game be played safely and well over and against issues of suicide, violence against intimate partners, depression, all the things that impact vet players who, in our fantasy leagues, we draft. >> you know, the issue here is you can talk about making the game safer. football is a contact sport, and you're going to have injuries. and you cannot make the game safer from the standpoint of protecting the brain. the helmet protects the skull, it does not protect the brain.

the brain is encased in fluid inside of the skull. and when you sustain those injuries, you don't know how that's going to manifest itself as you move forward. as a result, you get guys who have mood swings, guys who do erratic things in terms of their behavior. and you have guys who really literally think they are going crazy because they're no longer the individuals that they were. that's the reason why you have a dave doerson putting a gun to their head and pulling the trigger. they know something is going on. 20 years ago nobody talked about concussions but it really is a hot button topic now because it's there for everybody to see, and that really is the importance of this movie and dr.

bennett amalu. we need to not necessarily focus on trying to make the game safer. yeah, i like football, too, but my grandson is not going to play football. he's five years old. he knows he's not going to play football. i didn't want my sons to play. but i wanted it to be their choice. given what i know now, and i've said this over and over, if i had to do it all over again, given what i know now, i would not have played the game. because i've seen the damage that has been created by playing this game, and you can sugarcoat this thing all you want. it's a game, everybody everybo to go out and watch. if you got the information as a parent and you want your kid to play, fine. let your kid play. but i think if you really want to protect your kid, you would think differently. >> thank you in las vegas to harry carson. also thank you to demarius smith in d.c. i didn't get a chance to ask you

if it's time for goodell to go, but maybe i can get that during the commercial break. >> you probably know what i would say. >> and here in new york, dorian warren and dr. alessi. there's more at the top of the hour. they're not. if a denture were to be put under a microscope, we can see all the bacteria that still exists on the denture, and that bacteria multiplies very rapidly. that's why dentists recommend cleaning with polident everyday. polident's unique micro clean formula works in just 3 minutes, killing 99.99% of odor causing bacteria. for a cleaner, fresher, brighter denture every day.

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welcome back. i'm melissa harris-perry. 11,000 people, including law enforcement officers from around the country, were in houston friday for the funeral of slain deputy darren goforth. the funeral came a week after he was shot for simply pumping gas. shannon miles is accused of walking up to goforth and shooting him in the back of the head in cold blood and continuing to shoot him 15 times. goforth is white, miles is black. miles also has a history of

arrest and charges. he spent some time in a texas state mental hospital. as the community grieved the loss of deputy goforth, the talk about his death has become a military commentary. not about the availability of guns, but about this. >> so at any point where the rhetoric ramps up to the point where calculated, cold-blooded assassination of police officers happen, this rhetoric has gotten out of control. we've heard black lives matter, all lives matter, well, cops' lives matter, too. let's just drop the rhetoric and say all lives matter. >> listen to elizabeth hassleback of fox & friends who asked this of her guest on monday. >> why has the black lives matter movement not been

classified yet as a hate group? how much has to go in this direction before someone actually labels it as such? >> now, hassleback and other media professionals have bore the brunt of displeasure by those outraged by the suggestion that black lives matter is a hate group, some blaming implicit or explicit racial bias for this characterization of the movement. allow me to offer a slightly different theory. german soeciologist made it unclear. if i jump out and arrest you, we call it an arrest. even the godmother of teeny tiny government believes we have force. she writes, the only form of

government is the police to protect you from criminals, the army to protect you from foreign invaders, and the courts to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others. what makes a government a government and makes it strong and stable are when the people governed by it believe that the government's use of violence is legitimate. so when the people instead declare that the state power, especially as embodied in its police, is no longer legitimate, that its use of violent force and coercion is biased and should be questioned, well, it sets up an existential dilemma. because if those citizens succeed in convincing others that the state's violence is illegitimate, then the state can lose its power to govern. just more than 50 years ago, the action of voting rights activist provoked brutal violence from authorities, and when americans saw the viciousness of these police, it changed the country's

legitimacy of police, ultimately leading to the destruction of the jim crow voting restrictions. undoubtedly this is why king and others were monitored, harassed and threatened by the fbi. tactics deployed by the fbi to even greater effect later in the 1960s against the black panther par party. the 10-point platform of the black panther party rendered black parties illegitimate. and they engaged in actual shootouts with police. law enforcement, including the fbi, sought to delegitimize and destroy the panthers. a backlash of those who challenge a state's monopoly on violence is the plot of the development of the number one movie in the country right now, "straight outta compton," which talks about the hip-hop groups declaring their lyrics at the

police. recall what happened to new york mayor bill de blasio at the end of 2014. black lives matter gripped the country as they refused to hold up an officer in the choking of eric garner. de blasio struck a decidedly different tone, invoking his own differences of raising a black son. >> i couldn't help but immediately think what it would mean to me to lose dante. life could never be the same thereafter. no family should have to go through what the garner family went through. shenae and i have had to talk to dante for years about the dangers he may face. it's a phrase that should never have to be said, it should be self-evident. but our history, sadly, requires us to say that black lives matter. >> many officers were furious as the mayor appeared to challenge

the legitimacy of their actions, and then two officers were murdered while sitting in their patrol car in brooklyn. and the gunman who took his own life had made social media comments threatening to kill officers in retaliation for the non-indictment decisions in the eric garner and michael brown cases. so when mayor de blasio arrived at the hospital to see the officers' families and when he spoke at their funeral, some in the nypd turned their backs on him. the mayor, their boss. this is a struggle that spans american history. a people challenging the legitimacy of the state policing in their communities and then a backlash as the state seeks to discredit those who challenge it. what happens in that struggle determines who we become. joining me now, monica dennis, regional coordinator for black lives matter, new york city. and nile forth, minister. thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having us. >> we know that black lives

matter has been suggested to be called a hate group, and the most struggling part of that is it is a group. black lives matter is a movement. help me think about what the response to black lives matter has been in this discourse? >> the first thing we think it's important to highlight is the movement started in direct response to violence, so we are not a hate group, we are not about violence, we are actually taking a stand upon the violence inflicted on our communities. it's important to put this in proper context that any time black people and black communities decide to be self-determining and to resist the violence that is inflicted against us, we are cited as aj ta -- agitators, as hyper violent, so if the state sees us as the entity of protecting american citizenry, then we also have to look at who the state defines as hyperviolent, hypermoral, and

that's often black bodies. >> this idea about the state and others defining black bodies, maybe even particularly black youth as hyperviolent, criminal, delegitimized? i'm worried that this discourse, because it's available, now has the ability of undermining the movement. >> right, and to piggyback off what monica said, i think what's important is getting the narrative right, and the narrative from the movement has always been we're not anti-police, but we're anti-police brutality. we are not a movement about harming police, we are a movement about holding police accountable, because police as an institution systemically and disproportionately harm communities of color, particularly black communities across the color. so i think giving that narrative is important. >> politically what happened in a narrative moment like that, especially in the land of television and radio and where little segments and pieces can be pulled out, is if there is someone at a black lives matter rally who is using words like pig or talking about violence

against police, or if an individual, in fact, does shoot and kill police officers and then in any way indicates a connection back, even just through social media, it suddenly has this wide impact on the movement. >> absolutely. so i think the focus should be, is why are the actions of individual black people then become the representation and the responsibility of all black people? so when we see difficuylan roof jeffrey dahmer or people particularly against black people, we want to focus on not the individual actions but what is actually happening to black communities that we find ourselves historically and currently under this state of constant hostility and duress by law enforcement. >> i can remember when the officers were killed in new york, i thought to myself, well, now black lives matter will be over because it can't sustain through kind of the death of officers.

it's too much of a -- but then it wasn't over and it's kind of managed to maintain. but i do wonder within the movement itself if there are conversations about sort of strategic changes or sort of ways to respond in moments like this. >> well, absolutely. i think what's really important is to highlight the work that's being done. so rhetoric is very important, and narratives are important, but even when we talk about the black panther party, one of the things that really solidified the community was the programs they had, right? what they called survival programs and they called it survival pending resolution. so it's important to talk about rhetoric, but it's also important to talk about the everyday work that's being done in these communities, that no matter what fox is saying, no matter what the right wing community is saying, we have people in communities meeting people's everyday needs and transforming that to communities, and that's what people want to see. >> just to put that in the clearest terms, those programs are things like breakfast programs for hungry children,

health clinics, right? that's what the panthers were doing. what does that look like in the black lives matter movement? >> absolutely. we run a books and breakfast program and there's quite a few books and breakfast programs across the country. it looks like teachings, it looks like community engagement, it looks like safe policing. it looks like organization happening locally and also nationally. also i think it's important for us to highlight the impact this actually has, this rhetoric, which is more than rhetoric, i would like to suggest, because it is backed by the force of politicians, media and law enforcement. what does it mean when the majority of the labor leadership of this movement is coming from black women and girls, so when we are saying that these people need to be surveilled more and we're citing violence, they are actually targeting black women and girls very, very specifically, very directly. >> thank you so much for taking the time to come.

you're right, this is substantively a turning point moment that has to be addressed. i appreciate you being here to do some of that addressing. thank you to monica dennis and adam forth. when we come back, president obama and scott walker on the police. steve... hey! come back here, steven stay strong! what's that? you want me to eat you? honey, he didn't say that! he did, very quietly... you can't hear from back there! don't fight your instincts. with each 150 calories or less, try our chocolatey brownies, tangy lemon bars and new creamy cheesecakes. fiber one. go on, have one!

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in july of 2009, harvard professor henry louis gates was arrested at his massachusetts home by a local police officer responding to a report of a robbery. the day after the charges against professor gates were dropped, president obama assessed the situation at the end of a live nationally televised news conference about health care. >> number one, any of us would be pretty angry. number two, that the cambridge

police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. and number three, what i think we know, separate and apart from this incident, is that there is a long history in this country of african-americans and latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. >> law enforcement organizations and officials objected, to say the least, to president obama's public criticism igniting backlash that concluded in a beer summit with the president, vice president biden, gates and crowley. it was the first controversy in president obama's presidency, and it was also a rare moment, the president of the united states challenging the decisions of a local police department. fast-forward six years later when racial policing are still key issues facing the obama

administration. wednesday scott walker, in an op ed for hot air wrote, quote, in the last six years under president obama, we've sign rise in anti-police rhetoric. this inflammatory and disgusting rhetoric has real consequences tore the safety of officers who put their lives on the line. joining me now are khalil mohammad and publisher for colors.com. joining me now, marxist claxom and a retired nypd detective. i want to start with you. what do you make of this statement that president obama -- and again, realizing this goes all the way back to 2009, that he and sort in sort x years of being president has made the world more dangerous for police officers?

>> it's a ridiculous assertion. the op-ed itself is obtuse, because i think what scott walker does is to diminish and ignore historical context and reality, and in doing so, in an attempt to lionize law enforcement, which is a danger and it's been going on by several individuals in an attempt to lionize law enforcement, he then places the victims, those people who have been oppressed for a long period of time, he places them responsible and he blames the president for a trend of resistance against oppression. i really think the piece is way off base, and without a factual substance. >> you make an interesting point, kahlil, that it can be troubling for democracy. what does it mean to be a nation of laws, a democracy where we're

meant to hold all our government agencies accountable to the people? >> the problem is historically policing has been the lightning rod of civil rights activism since the end of slavery. so when police have been the blunt instrument of social control as directed against people trying to live equal lives in a country built on inequality, you have to allow room for democracy to take hold for people to have dissent against an institution that isn't working for them. that rub, that conundrum is as old as the very struggle for freedom in this country. when i listen to scott walker in that op-ed, i'm hearing sort of echoes of the red baiting of black activists in the south who were so-called communists precisely because they had an economic critique of the very inequality they struggled under. we have to be smart about this, we have to promote historical

issues as an abstract treatment of the problem. >> this attitude of dissent, because this does feel like a place where there is a space to challenge, but it also is very difficult in a kind of political world where to criticize the police or other sort of institutions, even if one is the president, suddenly is off -- you know, kind of off the table and allowed to do that. >> it's strange. everyone's impressions of barack obama's interventions into local policing is just wildly off the map from one another. a lot of conservatives say he's micromanaging constantly, he's rationalized and radicalized. i don't think i have that impression. charleston is the one where he gave a larger discussion, and he's been talking about civil rights reform belatedly more

now. >> when he spoke on gates, he was there talking about health care. no one remembers what that whole speech was, just that last question. >> it's important to realize, and scott walker doesn't. he has this asinine line that says, this is not the country i grew up in. there were 12 cops shot, some of them racially motivated, saying we're going to wipe out the pigs. we've had so many more cop shootings in 15 years. we don't have cops on individual shootings at all like we had in 1971. there were 67 cops shot and killed in the line of duty in this country. this year there will probably be about 45, which is 45 too many, but it's less than 2007. there is no war on cops. people who are pretending there is right now are playing very cynical politics, which is scott walker's specialty in this campaign. >> so your point about policy,

part of why this rhetoric is ramping up is because here we are in the midst of a 2016 hard-fought gop primary. >> yeah, i think, really, every politician who is going to be running next year needs to understand that black lives matter, the movement against police brutality for police accountability, it is gaining momentum and it is going to keep gaining momentum. this isn't 1954, the earliest days of the civil rights movement, it's more like 1963 when the movement is really taking off, lots of decentralized, spontaneous, supportive activity. i think to matt's point, scott walker, in 1959, the numbers of police officers who died in the line of duty by 2013, the 2013 figures were the lowest since 1959. so when scott walker was growing up, life was actually much more dangerous for police officers. every death caused by violence

is tragic. but to use the deaths of police officers in the line of duty to discredit a movement for accountability, it's just really crass and pretty transparent, and the numbers do not support it. >> stop with me right there because we've got much more, but i want to stop right on that idea about what the numbers support. because when we come back, i'm going to dig into some more numbers, the latest crime statistics and the one number the government can't give you. but we can.

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after years of decline, we have seen an uptake in the murder rates in some large u.s. cities. on monday the "new york times" reported that in milwaukee, 1 1 people have been killed this year after 86 homicides in all of 2014. milwaukee saw a 6% increase in murders this year, and at least 35 cities in the u.s. reported increases in murders, violent

crimes or both. why? the justice department told us that they will convene at a summit in detroit this month in order to address that very question. and while gangs, drugs, access to guns are cited as likely factors, some speculate as the times put it, quote, intense national scrutiny of the use of force by police has made officers less aggressive and emboldened criminals. a theory known as the ferguson effect. joining my panel now from san francisco is sam sinyonwe. he is the data analyst behind police.org. nice to have you here, sam. >> thank you. >> we have crime stats, murder stats, we have stats about how many policemen are killed in the line of duty. what we don't have are stats about police shooting of civilians, and i'm wondering how that has a tendency to hamper our conversations on this issue. >> it absolutely does. and so, you know, fortunately

we've been able to collect fairly comprehensive statistics of the number killed by police every year, and what we've been able to find is at least 118 people have been killed by police so far this year which is an increase of last year and the year before. >> compare that to what we know about the number of officers. >> so for officers, for example, we know that 24 officers have been shot and killed in the line of duty so far this year. >> i think -- you know, i understand the reasonable pushback when we're talking about humans who are losing their lives, particularly losing their lives in gun violence, that counting feels like a cold way to do it or somehow can't tell us something. but it does feel to me like these data tell us something about what this relationship is between police officers and their communities. >> absolutely. i mean, at the very least what it tells us is that what some are claiming around police being less aggressive is, in fact, not played out by the numbers.

these numbers suggest that police have not adopted the kind of hands-off approach that some have claimed. >> sam, stick with us. don't go away. i want to come to kahlil because the question for me is why now do we assume that aggressive policing reduces violent crime when i felt we had just kind of turned the corner on that conversation and we were beginning to talk did decriminalization and less aggressive policing? >> one of the problems with the critique of black lives matter is it collapses all of the good work that has happened around disconnecting the prison policy initiatives known as mass incarceration from crime rates. >> right. >> so the national academy of sciences issued a report last year. we've got bipartisan research coming out of the koch brothers institute all pointing to policy drivers being disconnected from crime rates, and one of the pillars of that is policing has never shown definitive proof of being attached to lower crime rates or violence rates.

so we see diversity across the board in various communities with regard to whether policing worked or didn't work. it's indecisive. we simply don't know with any certainty. this critique of black lives matter collapses all of that and puts us right back in the same space we were in the 1980s or the 1990s with clinton's crime bill which put 100,000 more police across the nation. and one of the things that's important to note about black lives matter is we have to remember it's not just about the people killed by the police or how many police officers were killed, it's also about the hundreds of thousands of microaggressive abuses that the fergus ferguson doj report pointed to. we have a scale of evidence now in the last two years that really highlights what's happening to people who don't end up being shot but are completely demoralized and

abused in these communities. >> what i don't want to miss is the fact that policing is actually hard work, and there are things that make policing a more dangerous or less dangerous job. i guess part of what i'm interested in is what those sort of facts are, what actually makes it harder or more dangerous to be a police officer. >> well, first off, i agree with you with my experience in different assignments i've had, i recognize the dangers of law enforcement and policing itself. let's be honest about something. we're talking about volunteers, not victims here. we're talking about individuals who should be prepared and well aware of the dangers, the inherent dangers, of policing. it is a reality that we must face as law enforcement professionals that there exists the possibility -- not the probability but the possibility -- that your life will be sacrificed at some point. that's the reality, that's part of the danger. that's why not everyone can be a police officer. so i kind of shudder when i hear

about the dangers of policing. that's the nature of policing itself, and that's why you need a particular type of person to engage in this profession. additionally, let's look at what aggressive is. for policing to have devolved to where you quantify by aggression rates is quite disturbing. what happened to the service model and where are our priorities as a nation? is police work for enforcement based, more mill titarized or it more about providing service? we need to answer that question and decide where we're moving in the future. but let's not behave as if these are poor victims who are set upon here to sacrifice their lives and who have been sacrificed and far too many have been killed. but let's be honest also about the fact these are individuals who have made a choice to protect and to serve, and they

should be focused on service model and less on aggression, and that's so much what the black lives movement and other individuals who are calling for various forms of reform are asking for. >> one last question. actually, you know what, let's take a quick break. everybody stay with me including sam, because i want to ask you about campaign zero when we come back. i also want to say that still to come this morning, award winning filmmaker is here to talk about his new movie "black panther community." don't go away, anybody. it took joel silverman years to become a master dog trainer. but only a few commands to master depositing checks at chase atms. technology designed for you. so you can easily master the way you bank.

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panther party was the definitive organizational expression of black nationalism in america. and it remains a powerful symbol of black self-determination. the group's oakland, californ n californian-born aesthetic of black sunglasses and leather jackets is instantly recognizable. but the depth of its legacy is less known. the legacy is the subject of emmy award winner stanley

nelson's new documentary. the black panthers, vanguard of the revolution. >> the nations between police and negroes throughout the country are getting worse. one of the city's most troubled by animosity between police and negroes is oakland, california. >> people always talked about freedom and what that means. during that time period, being black in america, meant that you didn't walk down the street with the same sense of safety. and the same sense of privilege as a white person. >> there was absolutely no difference in the way the police treated us in mississippi than they did in california. they may not have called you [ bleep ] every day, but they treated you the same way they did in mississippi. >> police jump on you, beat you up, put the gun at your head. this is what we were going through on a daily basis.

>> when i first met them, they were in the process of forming an organization. for primarily self defense. we didn't plan to have a nationwide organization or anything like that. we were organizing, dealing with the problems in oakland. >> we use the black panther as our symbol because the nature of the panther doesn't strike anyone. but when he's asailed upon, he'll back up first. if the aggressor continues, then he'll strike out. >> hewitt had studied the law. in oakland at that particular time, anyone could carry a firearm who did not have a felony conviction at the time. the firearm could not be concealed. it had to be in the open. >> the california penal code

section 20020 through 1227 guarantees the citizen the right to bear arms. >> when we come back, film maker, stanley nelson. small, medium, large and extra large. if you need less data, pick small. if you need more, go with extra large-- a whopping 12 gigs for $80 a month plus $20 per phone. pick a size. change it up anytime. it's the simple way to get the best network. and now, get $300 when you switch. only at verizon. ♪ [ female announcer ] everything kids touch at school sticks with them. make sure the germs they bring home don't stick around. use clorox disinfecting products. you handle life; clorox handles the germs. you handle life; if an electric toothbrush was going to clean better than a manual. he said sure... but don't get just any one.

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we're doing everything we can to give you the best experience possible. because we should fit into your life. not the other way around. documentary film maker stan knee nelson is a mccarthur genius fellow, three-time emmy award winner and a recipient of the 2013 national humanities medal. first and foremost, nelson is a film maker whose works have never scheid away from the beauty and brutality of the black experience in america. he turned his eye to the historically misunderstood players in the long struggle for racial justice in america, the black panther party for self defense. his latest film, the black panthers, vanguard of the revolution, which opened in new york city this week is a retelling of the panter story from many of the voices that led the group from its meteoric rise to its fractious fall.

>> within the community that we're not going to continue to turn the other cheek. >> we're going to follow the police, we're going to maintain a legal distance, ready to throw down if necessary. >> the way they talked and dressed, we were phenomenon. >> the fbi wanted to destroy the panthers. >> we don't hate anyone because of their color. we hate oppression. >> we referred to ourselves as the vanguard. we wanted the entire community to follow. >> and we're very happy to have returning, film maker, educator, and incomparable stanley nelson. >> thank you. >> you capture in this film the eminent sense that revolution was possible. and i guess i'm wondering if you think it was ever actually possible the panthers could have changed the trajectory of american economic and social life. >> yeah, i think they could. i think one of the reasons we really wanted to show in the

film was that someone says, this was a revolutionary time. that revolution was in the air. that it wasn't just the panthers. that so many -- especially young people -- felt that there was going to be this incredible change in this country. that probably never came, or at least didn't come politically. it may be came culturally but not politically. >> so culturally, the panthers are -- they remain extraordinarily important. we see them in hip-hop. people will reproduce the aesthetic of them. but maybe in the aesthetic we also miss -- it's very gendered and we might miss the gendered reality. i want to play a little piece from the film where you talk about women as panthers. >> one of the ironies of the black panther party is that the images, the black male with the jacket and the gun, but the reality is, the majority of the rank and file by the end of the '60s are women. >> the black panther party

certainly had a chauvinist tone, so we tried to change some of the clear gender roles so that women had guns, and men cooked breakfast for children. did we overcome it? of course we didn't. as i like to say, we didn't get these brothers from revolutionary heaven. of. >> great line. tell me what difference these kind of gender politics made within the panthers. >> i think the panthers looked at this revolution that they felt was coming, you know, that it needed men and women to be, you know, soldiers in the revolution. so as they say in the film, women were a huge part of the panther movement. women were spokespeople for the panthers. women and men worked side by side. and i think it's one of the kind of falsehoods that we have. we don't think of women when we think of the black panthers. >> probably the most painful part of the film is watching the role of the fbi in creating what they call a culture of paranoia,

using co and tell pro and actually engaging in violent action against and with the panthers. does that tell us anything about the moment we're in now? >> i think it's a cautionary tale. i think you have to under that. and i think it's for all young people who are involved in the movement now, they have they need to take a look at the film and understand what happened to the panthers. i think the other thing to remember, the panthers were so young. they were teenagers. you know, and the fbi was, you know, using everything that they had to destroy the panthers. and one of the things i think is startling in the film is the fbi published this in documents. i mean, it was in documents. do everything you can to destroy the panthers. you know, so it's chilling. >> yeah, this is not conspiracy theory, right? >> no. >> this is just reading j. edgar hoover's documents. you talk about how young they were. one of the young voices was fred hampton. let's take a listen. >> fred hampton here in chicago

was the main voice for racial unity. >> stood up to say we don't kill -- we don't fight violence with violence. we fight for solidarity. >> the coalition in chicago remitted the latinos, the poor whites and poor blacks. but also because he had been in naacp, he had linkages with focus in congregations, church folks and working class folks, so fred was building a broad base coalition in chicago and that was the threat. >> so much of a threat that in the film you tell the story ultimately that -- or the film tells the story that fred hampton is killed in his own home while sleeping by the chicago police, ultimately his family winning an award against the police for that death. how -- historical factual. what difference would it have head if hampton had lived?

>> fred hampton was special. we called him the one in the editing room. he was so young, 21, i think, when he was killed. but he had also come out of that, you know, naacp movement. he was really trying to build coalitions in chicago. and so he was -- it was a little bit different from, you know, huey and bobby and the people who first formed in the movement in oakland with guns. he was a little bit different. it's just tragic he was murdered. >> tell us -- people are going to want to see it. how do people see it? >> we're in new york right now. and we opened last week. and we're here for another two weeks. and then we go to 21 cities across the country. the best way to figure it out is to go to theblackpanthers.com. and that tells where -- which city we're going to at different dates. one of the great things we're doing is having guests at screenings all over the country, panthers, other people involved, lawyers. so, you know, hopefully create events everywhere we go. >> chilling film. i watched it last night and could not sleep. thank you to stanley nelson.

the film once again, the black panthers, vanguard. for upcoming screenings, go to thebla theblackpanthers.com. we'll see you next saturday 10:00 a.m. eastern. right now, "weekends with alex witt." everyone loves the picture i posted of you. at&t reminds you it can wait.

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i'll take that. yeeeeeah! new ensure active high protein. 16 grams of protein and 23 vitamins and minerals. all in 160 calories. ensure. take life in. new polls. the surprising results in two key battleground states. we'll examine what's behind the numbers. the growing refugee crisis overseas. europe is to divided on what to do. should the u.s. step in and help? the fight over religion and marriage equality. should the kentucky clerk be behind bars today or should she simply resign? a debate ahead. this may be unprecedented in high school football. what happens when players get upset at the referee over a call? high