In 1913, a farmer in Wheatland, California, on the edge of the Sacramento Valley, advertises for temporary hop pickers, offering high wages and guaranteed employment for white men. Nearly 3000 people show up to the farm — twice as many as needed — to find much lower wages and abysmal living and working conditions.

On August 3, Industrial Workers of the World organizer Richard "Blackie" Ford addresses the pickers in six languages. Deputies arrive to arrest him mid-speech. One fires his shotgun into the air to scatter the crowd — and a riot erupts.

A district attorney, a Puerto Rican picker, and an 18-year-old English tenor known as the camp's "song leader" are killed in the chaos.

The workers flee but 100 are arrested. Two IWW leaders are convicted and imprisoned for inciting a riot.