Studs Terkel interviews Emma Tiller, a cook who describes how African Americans would feed people who were in need during the Great Depression, without any regard to their skin color.

In an interview with Studs Terkel, Virginia Foster Durr, a prominent American civil rights activist, reflects on life during the Great Depression, particularly the way that people on government relief felt shame and guilt over their own suffering and poverty, rather than blaming the capitalist system.

In this segment of an interview conducted by Studs Terkel, Eileen Barthe, a government relief case worker during the Great Depression, remembers an experience that caused a recipient of relief to face deep humiliation.