Choir singing, pastor, audience

Singing

00.00.00.00

Pastor in purple robes, people waiting, congregation, people singing

Mark Bannerman:  Sunday morning, the start of a new week, but for Cecil Williams, time is already running out.  Outside the hungry are gathering.

00.24

Inside his congregation is waiting for sustenance of another kind.  Now there is only time to take his wife's hand and make his way to what he laughingly calls, the sanctuary.

00.38

Singing

Bannerman:  Each week two thousand people flock to San Francisco's Glide Church. 

Map of California

Singing cont.

congregation

clapping, Cecil Williams speaking to congregation

Williams:  It's so good, it's so good.  With you here in the strangest place in America.  Yeah.

Bannerman:  Strange it may be, but few that come here leave untouched by the energy and warmth they find.

Intv with Janice Marikitani

Super:

JANICE MIRIKITANI

President,

Glide Church

Marikitani:  People come to Glide Church because they feel accepted, because they feel loved, they feel a sense of community.

01.28

Cecil Williams speaking to congregation, congregation clapping

Williams:  The most serious point of my playing church, was for me to imagine that one day out of segregation and racism and prejudice and discrimination, I would have a church that was mixed. 

I would have a church that was diverse.  I would have a church with everybody in it.  I was not going to continue to have a church that wasn't that way.

Bannerman:  If this sounds like nothing more than old style, southern evangelism think again.

02.00

Williams speaking to congregation

Williams:  So I'm warning you now, it's better to engage in justice and love, than it is to just come to church.

Audience holding hands,

Bannerman:  This is no ordinary congregation ...

02.19

congregation

listening, donating money

Williams:  Thank you Lord, Amen ...

Crowd:  Amen!

Williams:  Hallelujah

Crowd:  Hallelujah

Williams:  Right on!

Crowd:  Right on!

Williams:  Shalom

Crowd:  Shalom

Williams:  ... and so long.

Bannerman:  Williams has forged a formidable alliance that defies the barriers of race and class.  The people here give their time and money to fuel thirty nine separate welfare programs - all run by Glide.

02.28

Woman in red shirt at microphone, congregation, Williams speaking to congregation

Woman:  People, you don't even know your helping that your helping.  And believe me, Glide along with many other places in the state of California is not getting helped by our State or our government.

02.42

Bannerman:  Last year those programs cost six million dollars - in that time though the church attracted over 1,000 new members inspired by the gospel according to Cecil Williams.

02.51

Williams:  The courage to be is to not see things as they are but the courage to be is to see things as they ought to be.

03.02

Williams with man

Man:  I love you.  (laughter)  You're an amazing man.

yelling, b/w still

photos

Bannerman:  Heady praise but the Reverend Williams makes it his job to excite and to shock people.  When he came to Glide 33 years ago, he tore down the crucifix, stepped over the altar and stood among the congregation.

03.19

Intv with Cecil Williams

Williams:  I did that to dramatise my sense of freedom.  And when I stepped across the altar, I opened up my black robe and pulled it off and said, "As I take off my robe, I also want you to know that the walls here are going to crumble, because we're going out to where people are hurting.  And we're going to reach people in their desperation, in their desolation."

03.33

Tilt down building to road, man in wheelchair, woman with cane, food getting distributed

Bannerman:  This philosophy of unconditional acceptance seems utterly at odds with the mood of middle America.  Two years ago, angered by the failure of government programs to break the poverty cycle, the nation embarked on a radical experiment in welfare reform.

Benefits were cut, time limits for welfare introduced, leaving the people here at Glide to pick up the tab.

04.21

Intv with Janice Mirikitani

Mirikitani:  We're seeing 25 percent more people in our lines and this is not just people who are not employed. This is a population of  working poor.

Intv with Cecil Williams

Williams:  What they expect is that some way, somehow we're going to pick it up, some of us in America, urban America are going pick to it up.  We can only pick up so much!

04.38

Williams speaking to congregation, congregation hugging

Williams:  Now turn around and embrace your brothers and sisters, embrace ...

Black woman walking down

Southworth:  Baby girl, baby girl, are you all right?

street, wakes up

woman on pavement

How are you? Are you all right?  Got a place to stay?

Bannerman:  For this young crack addict, a pile of blankets is home.

Southworth:  She's a male prostitute - transgenics prostitute - and she has to do whatever she has to do, like any female would have to do - hustle for their money, steal, lie, everything - the whole nine yards.

05.26

Southworth (yelling):  Bro!  Damn.  You got a blanket  I can buy?

Intv with Sanday Southworth

Southworth:  Skin and bones.  She's dying.

05.49

Bannerman:  She's dying right there?

Super:

SANDAY

Southworth:  She's dying, period!

05.53

SOUTHWORTH

Glide Church

Bannerman:  But I mean, she should be in the hospital shouldn't she?

Southworth:  Yeah.

Bannerman:  Why isn't she?

Southworth:  Because nobody cares.  Nobody cares about what happens to her so why should she?

06.01

Bannerman:  Does she have HIV?

Woman:  Yes.

Bannerman:  And full blown AIDS?

Woman:  Yes.

Bannerman:  Have you seen her over the last few weeks, is she getting worse?

Woman:  She's getting worse.

Bannerman:  It was just really ...

Woman:  And she'll be laying there all weak, if I come back here today.

06.21

Woman lying on pavement, Southworth talking to her

Southworth:  Call me today okay?  Okay?  All right honey?  Call me.  If you need something, I'll get it for you okay?  Right?

Hallway, footsteps, Sanday

Woman:  How's everyone doing this morning?  Huh?

Southworth

walking down hallway, in room, collecting condoms and putting them into red bag

Bannerman:  Sandy Southworth knows a thing or two about survival.  A former prostitute, crack addict and drug dealer, her home was the streets.

Now she's an aids outreach worker at Glide.  Today she will load up her bag two or three times in her one woman campaign to help those people America has discarded.

06.57

Southworth:  I need a bunch of bleach. Cos I know they're out there today.

07.11

Bannerman:  It was Cecil Williams brand of unconditional love that opened the door to this new life but it did not come without a struggle.

Intv with Sanday Southworth

Southworth:  He's your mother, your father, your sister, whatever - he's all of those in one.  And when I met him, it was like, hmm, I'm going to get you, I'm going to get you, dude!

07.23

Southworth crossing street,

Bannerman:  But it was Williams who got her.

07.35

giving out condoms

walking

Southworth (yelling):   Condoms!

Music

Southworth:  Condoms!  How you doing sir?  You need some condoms?  Having sex?  You want this?  All right!  You never had sex.  Are you a virgin?  Use it when you do.  Hey, get your HIV test.  I've got some ... ... hotel. Condoms!

Meeting woman, hugging, walking away with her,

Voice:  That's my baby ...  This is who I was looking for.

08.07

sitting down on

bench, giving friend things

Bannerman:  Watching this feisty Queen of the streets, it's hard to imagine anything that could phase her but here a moment can become a lifetime.

Southworth:  This is Red, this is my friend I use to use with years and years.  We used to smoke dope together.  Huh Red? We used to smoke 'em up and smoke 'em out.

Southworth:  And you've got to use this cotton on your face.  Now she's doing everything.  She turns tricks.  She don't like sex, she likes to give head.

Pouring out vitamins, kisses friend goodbye, friend walks away

Bannerman:  She'll offer her old friend vitamins, bleach for needles and cream for the sores that are overtaking her body.

But Sanday's affection cannot remove the feeling that these people on the bottom have simply been forgotten.

Southworth:  People need to come behind them doors and stop being hypocrites and stand up and say, "Hey, you are my brothers you are my sisters, we love you. 

09.02

Intv with Southworth

My own mother will not talk to me, my own family will have nothing to do with me because I have AIDS because I am dying. 

All I ask is a little love, all I ask is for my mother to wrap her arms around me and tell me I'm hers.  So she don't do it to me, I come out here and I embrace, I embrace the community.

Intv with Cecil Williams

Williams:  There's not a genuine concern, there's not a genuine caring, there's not genuine compassion out there.  Folks now are getting theirs and when you get yours you forget about those folks that you once knew, that you once responded to.

09.39

Clinton speaking at microphone, audience clapping, demonstration with placards, people

Clinton:  Today we are taking a historic chance to make welfare what it was meant to be.  A second chance, not a way of life.

09.55

waiting around

Bannerman:  The President called it a new beginning.

Chant:  Shame, shame, shame ...

Bannerman:  Others in his party though preferred the term, Shock Therapy.  Legal immigrants lost assistance all together.  Anyone else out of work had just two years to find a job or they too would be on their own.

Conservatives were delighted and in states like California with big numbers on welfare, it was welcome news.

Intv with Sean Walsh

Super:

SEAN WALSH

Governor's Spokesman, California

Walsh:  We needed welfare reform simply because the welfare state as we called it here was out of control.  At one juncture we had about almost a million people in the State of California on welfare.

10.27

It became an incentive system where it became more attractive or as attractive to stay on welfare than it was to work.

People walking on streets, houses, kids

Bannerman:  For those already on the street, it was troubling.  But for families already battling to survive on government handouts, it promised a firestorm.

In San Francisco this is what passes for public housing.  It is not a prison but a childhood here can become a life sentence.

11.02

Intv with Jennifer

Jennifer:  It was horrible, a lot of crying, lot of drugs, lot of criminal activity.

11.10

Jennifer, mother, young girl walking along, going inside house

Bannerman:  Jennifer grew up in the projects.  Now a recovering addict, victim of incest and domestic violence, she's visiting her mother Diane.

This family's story is not unique, its power though comes in knowing that it is one repeated time and again in ghettos across America.

Intv with Jennifer

Jennifer:  I have a sister who's older than me and we share the same father.  I have three younger brothers who each have a different father and that's my background.

Bannerman:  What she prefers not to talk about is how some of these men she called 'father' raped and abused her.

Jennifer:  So in turn, what I did was chose a man who was also drinking and living the street life and my three boys each have a different father.  I went from bad to worse and to hell.

Pan of houses, Diane in doorway

Bannerman:  If Jennifer's hell included losing her children to the state, Diane's involved watching her daughter fall apart and knowing that she, in some way at least, was responsible.  A year ago she convinced Jennifer to go to Glide.

12.19

Bannerman:  Why did you make that decision?

Intv with Jennifer

Jennifer:  Because inside I had died and like I said I was hospitalised and I knew if I used drugs again, that I would not be able to come back so I decided to take it serious and seek the help that I needed.

Bannerman:  So you went down to Glide.  What did you find there?   What did you find when you went to Glide?

13.00

Jennifer:  Unbelievably, I found a lot of support, a lot of help and things that I never knew.

Diane opening door, kids coming in, tilt of shoes

Diane:  Hi, hi, hi, don't break the door down, I'm coming.

up the stairway

Bannerman:  Jennifer may be in recovery but her brothers and sisters are not.  Caught in a web of drugs and jail, their eight children stay here with Diane.

13.17

Diane:  Hang up your coat and come and eat.

Bannerman:  With this many children under the one roof, food is always the major topic of conversation.  Each week Diane receives eighty dollars plus food stamps.  The government calls this generous but it is simply not enough to feed her family.

Intv with Diane in kitchen

Bannerman:  So what do you do?

Diane:  I go on one meal a day, I eat at night and the kids eat lunch at school and snack gets smaller and smaller, or non-existent and if we really get short, we go to Glide.

Diane with children

Bannerman:  The government solution to this problem is to demand that Diane be retrained and to find work.

14.01

Intv with Walsh

Walsh:  What it means for this woman is not only do you have two years to get a job, it means that we are going to pay for you to get trained, we are going to pay for your child care, we're going to cover each and every one of those children with competent either pre-school care or other sorts of after school care or infant toddler care. 

This is the no excuses policy, no excuse that you can't get child care to get a job, no excuse that you can't get medical coverage for your self or your children to get a job, no excuses that you're not going to have training to get a job ...

Intv with Diane in kitchen

Bannerman:  For Diane the clock of welfare reform is ticking.

Diane:  I don't even think about it day to day because if I worry, then I'm not going to be able to function and I'm not going to do the kids any good or me any good.

14.39

Intv with Cecil Williams

Williams:  The problem with welfare reform is that it's a disaster.  Even if there is work out there for a sizable number of people it will still be at the level of not being much more than they are already getting on welfare.

Kids playing, fried chicken, people getting food, choir

Bannerman:  If he is right and families fall between the cracks, there will be just one place left to go. 

15.07

singing

congregation responding

Glide will simply have to find more places at the table and stretch the fried chicken just that much further.

Choir Singing

Bannerman:  If the congregation looks burdened it doesn't show it.  Each Sunday brings with it new excitements, new rewards and today is no exception.

15.33

Choir Singing

Cecil Williams baptising baby, parents watching, congregation

Williams:  I want to christen you in the name first of all of your family, mom and your dad ...

15.47

clapping

Bannerman:  This is a Glide baby.  It may not know it now, but it has just become part of the strangest church in America.

Williams:  I finally want to christen you in the name of the spirit and of the love of the spirit that is manifest in all of us.

Choir Singing

ENDS

16.22