Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt-Chapter 103 - 70: Hunger

An open-air plaza in the western district of Pittsburgh.

This was one of the most racially diverse areas in the city.

To the left of the street was a traditional white, blue-collar neighborhood, its rows of old brick houses home to descendants of Irish and Polish immigrants who had worked in the steel mills for generations.

To the right of the street was the rental district for African-Americans and Latinos, its cheap apartment buildings packed with low-wage laborers struggling to make a living in the service industry.

Normally, the boundary on this street wasn’t obvious. Everyone shopped at the same supermarket and filled up at the same gas station.

But today, the air was thick with the smell of gunpowder.

The flyers that Carter Wright had distributed were spreading through the community.

White workers gathered on street corners, staring across the road with suspicion and hostility. They clutched the flyers, which claimed that Leo planned to use their tax money to build gardens for the people on the other side.

Meanwhile, young Black men stood on the steps on the other side, their expressions cold and wary.

The rumor they’d heard was that the white man named Leo was just putting on a show and couldn’t care less whether they lived or died.

The two groups were separated by a road less than ten meters wide.

Two patrol cars from the Pittsburgh Police Department were parked nearby. A few officers sat inside, showing no intention of getting out to maintain order.

They were waiting.

Waiting for a conflict to erupt, for someone to throw the first bottle, for Leo’s campaign rally to turn into a race riot.

If a fight broke out, tomorrow’s headlines would nail Leo to the pillory: "Radical Candidate Incites Community Riot."

Leo stood on a makeshift lectern of wooden crates, wearing only a plain work shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Frank stood below the stage with a few burly Union brothers, nervously scanning the surroundings, ready to deal with any sudden incidents.

Behind him, Sarah was holding up her phone, livestreaming. Her hand was trembling slightly; the hostility in the air was so thick it felt tangible.

"Good afternoon, everyone." Leo’s voice, crackling with static, came through a cheap megaphone. "I’m here today to talk to you all about our future."

"The future?"

A shrill laugh immediately cut through the crowd.

A burly white man in a leather jacket, his face fleshy and stern, pushed his way to the front.

He was a professional agitator, planted by Carter Wright’s team.

"Stop feeding us empty promises, Wallace!" the man yelled, pointing a finger in Leo’s face. "We just want to know one thing! Whose side are you on?"

His voice was so loud it drowned out Leo’s megaphone.

"Are you going to help us hardworking white people get our jobs back, or are you going to take our hard-earned money and use it to support those lazy bums across the street who do nothing all day?"

Those words were like a spark tossed into a pile of dry kindling.

The crowd of white people started to jeer, and someone shouted in agreement, "Yeah! Tell us straight!"

The Black residents across the street were also enraged. Someone started yelling back, "Who are you calling a lazy bum? Go back to your trailer!"

Shoving began.

The agitator looked at Leo smugly. He had completed his mission.

All Leo had to do was answer the question, and no matter how he answered, it was a dead end.

To choose a side was to create division.

Not to answer was to show weakness.

Leo looked at the crowd on the verge of losing control, at the faces twisted with anger.

Roosevelt’s voice immediately sounded in his mind.

’Don’t fall into this trap of binary opposition, Leo.’

’A hundred years ago, this is exactly what the plantation owners in the Southern States did. When poor white tenant farmers and Black slaves were on the verge of uniting out of hunger, they would throw them this bone.’

’Racism has never been a simple emotion. It’s a political tool used by oligarchs to divide the lower classes.’

’Tell them the truth.’

Roosevelt’s voice boomed like a great bell.

’Tell them their suffering isn’t because of their neighbor’s skin color, but because of the greed at the very top.’

’Make them take their eyes off each other and look up.’

Leo took a deep breath.

He made a move.

He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out two crumpled slips of paper.

They were props he had prepared in advance.

"QUIET!"

Leo bellowed into the microphone with a voice honed on construction sites.

The crowd quieted down a little.

Leo held up the slip of paper in his left hand.

"This one is Mike Kovalsky’s pay stub."

He pointed to Frank in the crowd. Frank froze for a second, not expecting Leo to use his nephew’s pay stub.

"Mike is a white man, thirty-five years old, a steelworker. He works ten hours a day in a high-temperature workshop, and his hands are covered in scars from burns."

"This was his take-home pay last month: two thousand, two hundred US Dollars." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Leo read the number aloud.

Then, he held up the paper in his right hand.

"This one is David Jackson’s pay stub."

He looked across the street at a Black janitor standing at the edge of the crowd, a friend he’d met at the barbershop.

"David is a Black man, forty years old, and he works as a janitor in an office building in Pittsburgh City Center. He has to get up at four every morning to clean all the bathrooms in that entire building, and he works straight through until eight at night."

"This was his take-home pay last month: one thousand, eight hundred US Dollars."

Leo held the two stubs high, side by side.

"Mike, you tell me, do you think David stole your job? Is his work any easier than yours? Does he make more money than you?"

He turned to the other side.

"David, do you think Mike has some privilege that you don’t? Can he afford his daughter’s hospital bills? Can he pay his mortgage?"

The plaza fell dead silent.

The agitator opened his mouth to speak, but Leo didn’t give him the chance.

"Look at these two numbers!"

Leo waved the two slips of paper.

"What do they have in common? The only thing they have in common is that they’re low!"

"So low you can’t support a family! So low you can’t afford to get sick! So low it makes a grown man want to cry looking at his bills late at night!"

"Hunger has no skin color!"

"Poverty doesn’t see Black or white!"

"When your stomach is growling, it doesn’t ask if you’re Irish or African! When the cold wind blows through your drafty windows, it doesn’t take a detour just because you’re white!"

Leo spun around abruptly and pointed into the distance.

He was pointing toward Pittsburgh City Center, toward the soaring, glass-walled skyscraper of the Morganfield Industrial Group, which reflected a blinding golden light in the setting sun.

"While you’re all down here, hating and shoving each other over a few crumbs of bread, over who got a little more in benefits."

"Do you know what the people living on the top floor of that building are doing?"

Leo’s voice turned ice-cold.

"They’re drinking champagne that costs hundreds of US Dollars a bottle and looking down at us with scorn."

"They’re laughing at our stupidity."

"They’re laughing at us for being like a pack of dogs trapped in a cage. The master throws in a bone, and we tear each other apart for it, forgetting to bite the one holding the bone!"

"The thing they fear most isn’t Black people, and it isn’t white people."

"The thing they fear most is us standing together!"

"The thing they fear most is Mike and David discovering that their enemy is one and the same!"

Leo stepped down from the lectern and walked directly into the middle of the crowd.

The white workers and Black residents, who had been at each other’s throats just moments before, parted to make a path for him.

Leo stood before the agitator.

Faced with the fire blazing in Leo’s eyes, the burly, fleshy-faced man actually took an involuntary step back.

"You ask me whose side I’m on?"

Leo stared into his eyes.

"I’m on the side of the exploited."

"I’m on the side of those who can’t afford medicine."

"I’m on the side of those who want to live with dignity."

"The ones who stole your future aren’t your Black neighbors next door, and it’s not the immigrant from Mexico who took your job."

Leo turned and looked around at everyone.

"It’s the one who closed the factory for profit!"

"It’s the one who cut benefits for the sake of stock prices!"

"It’s class!"

At that moment, the plaza was silent.

The people watched Leo, their eyes on the two pay stubs still clutched tightly in his hand.

Eyes that had been clouded by racial hatred began to clear.

The primal instinct awakened by the "dog whistle" was being replaced by a deeper, more painful, and more authentic class solidarity.

The white man, Mike, glanced across at the Black man, David.

He saw in David’s weary face the same helplessness he felt himself.

It was the mark of a life that had been crushed by hardship.

It was the mark of his own kind.

It’s unclear who started it.

Maybe it was Frank, or maybe it was the Black barber.

Applause broke out.

It was sparse and hesitant at first.

But soon, the applause spread like wildfire across the entire plaza.

White people were clapping. Black people were clapping.

They were no longer hostile toward one another. All eyes were fixed on the young man standing in the middle of the road.

The agitator saw the shift in the atmosphere and immediately realized the situation had turned against him.

He tried to stir things up again. "Don’t listen to his bullshit! He’s just a—"

"Shut your mouth!"

A white welder standing next to him grabbed him by the collar.

"Get out! You’re not welcome here!"

"Get out!"

The surrounding workers roared.

The agitator, who had been so aggressive just moments before, was shoved by the angry crowd and fled the scene in disgrace.

The officers in the patrol car glanced at each other and silently rolled up their windows.

The riot they had anticipated never happened.

Instead, something else had happened—something that made them even more uneasy.

Leo stood in the center of the crowd, gasping for breath.

That speech had taken every ounce of his strength.

But he had won.

Using a classic class narrative and a straightforward analysis of interests, he had temporarily smothered the flames of racism.

He hadn’t just held his ground; he had advanced the frontline.

He had made these people understand a simple truth: in this quagmire, the only glimmer of hope was to unite and climb up together.

Roosevelt’s voice echoed softly in his mind.

’Well done, kid.’

’You’ve found the one incantation that can break the curse.’

’Now, Carter Wright’s second move has failed.’

’Get ready. He only has one card left to play.’