[Distant dog barking] Man: So we're gonna start putting this stuff in buckets, and this is called enriched mulch.

I don't know how to say that in Spanish.

[Woman speaking Spanish] [Man speaks Spanish] Man: ...con vitamins.

Yeah.

Man, voice-over: What I do in Watts is I do community gardening.

I create opportunities for high school students to earn letters of recommendation as an exchange for the activism, the organizing, and the work that they do in gardening.

Moses: So what we do is we put this here, and this is what we call sifting.

Heh!

Moses, voice-over: I messed up a little bit in the ninth grade because of gangs, but by the tenth grade, I realized I could be an athlete and I could do well in school, and I wanted to be eligible to get into a university because I saw a university as a way out from violence and abuse and blight and systemic oppression that I grew up with as a child, that was normalized to me.

Moses: So, at first, we put the amendment in and then we massage the roots, like this.

Moses, voice-over: So, when I got to UC Santa Cruz, I had a culture shock.

I had no idea--heh!--that I was privileged to be in Watts or in Inglewood, where all these Black businesses were and where Black people were and where Black culture was regular, and there were so many white people that I didn't feel like I belonged in college.

But then I'll remember I encountered this professor, this very tall, well-spoken professor with a big afro, who I had never heard of before in my life.

Her name was Angela Davis.

Angela: You're defending yourselves, you're defending the struggle, you're defending the cause of liberation.

Moses, voice-over: Initially went to UC Santa Cruz because I wanted to be a doctor.

I learned a lot in my first class on that track, but what stood out to me the most was the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, was the racism.

And I had so many questions about it that weren't getting answered because that wasn't the objective of the class, so I said to myself, "I just met this person on accident named Angela Davis.

She answered the questions about racism that the medical track is not answering.

I'm gonna switch over and I want to do history and I want to do sociology and I want to do what's called feminist studies."

[Distant dog barking] Boy: Tomato time.

Moses: OK, you want to unload some of these tomatoes with me?

Masala, can you go up that way and see if any of the neighbors are on the porch and ask 'em if they want some tomatoes?

Moses, voice-over: I was then able to contextualize Watts and see that the things that were happening in Watts and the way that I perceived Watts to be was because I was being miseducated.

Watts is named for a man named C.H.

Watts.

C.H.

Watts was a white man who made lots of money... Moses: De nada.

Moses, voice-over: And then, over time, it industrialized and went from agricultural to industrial.

And in doing so, the demand for African Americans during the first and second Great Migration meant that Watts became something like a place where people can come and find better opportunities than they had in the South.

So institutions like WLCAC, people like the Watkins family, those people created opportunities for African Americans to fight against things that were happening to them as a result of people not wanting them to find better lives.

Woman: OK, thank you.

Moses: Adiós, Doña.

Buenas noches.

Doña: OK, thank you.

Moses, voice-over: I'm a farmer's apprentice, and when I was going through all the trauma of what was the comprehensive exams for Ph.D. and trying to find my way in the academy, I told Dr. Stephanie Evans, I said, "I'm gonna finish this Ph.D. and I want to be a farmer."

Moses: You want tomatoes?

These are free.

You want-- Woman: So I'll be back.

Moses: All right.

I'll be-- they might be gone!

Moses, voice-over: I didn't know I was serious.

I thought I was just saying that 'cause I was disillusioned with all these books I had to read, and I don't want to keep arguing with people about why my work is valuable, but I actually spoke my future to life.

Tim: What's happening, man?

No, I just saw you, man.

I just saw you.

Man: I love you, baby.

How you been, man?

Tim: How you doing?

All right.

I'm going over here to see Dottie.

Man: Oh, OK, man.

Tim: Yeah.