Mary Curtis Ratcliff talks to Kakoli Mitra about the founding of the Videofreex in the late 1960s. At the time, the United States was undergoing a social awakening, as African-Americans agitated for their civil rights, and young men were drafted into the unpopular Vietnam war. Mary Curtis explains how everything on television was scripted, making what she and her fellow Videofreex pioneers did, i.e., running around Manhattan (New York City, United States) with a video camera and documenting the grassroots movements, unheard of in that era. CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), one of the three television broadcasters at the time, hired the Videofreex to make a documentary about the avantgarde movement of the 1960s. So, the pioneers had to hire seven more people; they became a collective of ten, living together on $25 a week. Mary Curtis explains how the avantgarde movement was mixed up with the Vietnam war, which most people felt to be a bogus war. She talks about traveling all over the country documenting the movement, including going to Chicago to interview Abbie Hoffman, the head of the Yippees (Youth International Party) and a member of the Chicago Seven. Her team also interviewed Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers, who was assassinated soon after. CBS would not air the interview with Fred Hampton and cut off ties with the Videofreex when they refused to alter the footage.