''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement'' is an American

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite television, satellite, or cable television, cable, excluding breaking news, television adverti ...

and 14-part documentary about the 20th-century

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

network, and it also aired in the United Kingdom on

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

. Created and executive produced by

Henry Hampton Henry Eugene Hampton Jr. (8 January 1940 – 22 November 1998) was an African-American filmmaker. His production company, Blackside, Inc., produced over 80 programs—the most recognizable being the documentary ''Eyes on the Prize,'' which w ...

at his film production company Blackside, and narrated by

Julian Bond Horace Julian Bond (January 14, 1940 – August 15, 2015) was an American social activist, leader of the civil rights movement, politician, professor, and writer. While he was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the e ...

, the series uses

archival footage Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stock ...

, stills, and interviews by participants and opponents of the movement. The title of the series is derived from the title of the

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...

Keep Your Eyes on the Prize "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize" is a folk song that became influential during the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. It is based on the traditional song, "Gospel Plow," also known as "Hold On," "Keep Your Hand on the Plow," and v ...

", which is used as the opening theme music in each episode. The series won a number of

Emmy Awards The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

Peabody Awards The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...

, and was nominated for an

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology), ...

. A total of 14 episodes of ''Eyes on the Prize'' were produced in two separate parts. The first part, ''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954–1965'', chronicles the time period between the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

ruling ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregat ...

'' (1954) to the

Selma to Montgomery marches The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the ...

of 1965. It consists of six episodes, which premiered on January 21, 1987, and concluded on February 25, 1987. The second part, ''Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads 1965–1985'', chronicles the time period between the national emergence of

Malcolm X Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Is ...

during 1964 to the 1983 election of

Harold Washington Harold Lee Washington (April 15, 1922 – November 25, 1987) was an American lawyer and politician who was the 51st Mayor of Chicago. Washington became the first African American to be elected as the city's mayor in April 1983. He served as ma ...

as the first African-American mayor of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. It consists of eight episodes, which aired on January 15, 1990 and ended on March 5, 1990. The documentary was made widely available to educators on VHS tape. All 14 hours were re-released on DVD in 2006 by PBS.

Broadcast

The film originated as two sequential projects. Part one, six hours long, was shown on

in early 1987 as ''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954–1965''. Eight more hours were broadcast in 1990 as ''Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads 1965–1985''. In 1992, the documentary was released on home video. By the mid-1990s, both rebroadcasts and home video distribution were halted for several years due to expiration of rights and licenses of copyrighted archive footage, photographs and music used in the series. Copyright holders were demanding increasingly higher rates. Grants from the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

and Gilder Foundation enabled Blackside and the rights clearance team to renew rights in 2005. While the return of ''Eyes on the Prize'' to public television and the educational market depended on the contributions of many, four individuals in particular are credited with achieving the complicated undertaking of rights renewals and the re-release of the series: Sandra Forman, Legal Counsel and Project Director; Cynthia Meagher Kuhn, Archivist and Rights Coordinator; Rena Kosersky, Music Supervisor; and Judi Hampton, President of Blackside and sister of Henry Hampton. None of the archival material in the fourteen-hour documentary was removed or altered in any way. PBS rebroadcast the first six hours on ''

American Experience ''American Experience'' is a television program airing on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. The program airs documentaries, many of which have won awards, about important or interesting events and people in American his ...

'' on three consecutive Mondays in October 2006, and rebroadcast the second eight hours in February 2008. After a gap of almost eight years, ''Eyes on the Prize'' was rebroadcast on

World Channel WORLD Channel, also branded as WORLD, is an American digital multicast public television network owned and operated by the WGBH Educational Foundation. It is distributed by American Public Television and the National Educational Telecommunicatio ...

on fourteen consecutive Sundays beginning on January 17, 2016. PBS reissued an educational version of the series in the fall of 2006, making it available on DVD for the first time. It is now available to educational institutions and libraries from PBS on seven DVDs or seven VHS tapes. A consumer version of part one (1954–1965) was released in March 2010. The licensing issues from 1993 to 2006 generated what was called

Eyes on the Screen Eyes on the Screen was a project to disseminate the American television documentary series ''Eyes on the Prize'' by file sharing networks without regard to copyright restrictions during the period the series was out of print, 1993-2006. Operating i ...

, an effort to disseminate the series by

file sharing networks File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include r ...

without regard to copyright restrictions.

Episodes

''America's Civil Rights Years 1954–1965''

''America at the Racial Crossroads 1965–1985''

Book

The book ''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965'' was created as a companion volume to the series during post-production by the producers and publishing staff at Blackside, Inc. They were assisted by

Juan Williams Juan Antonio Williams (born April 10, 1954) is a Panamanian Americans, Panamanian-born American journalist and political analyst for Fox News Channel. He writes for several newspapers, including ''The Washington Post'', ''The New York Times'', ...

, a journalist with ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''. First published by

Viking Press Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquire ...

in 1987, the book used a portion of the iconic photograph of the

Selma to Montgomery march The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the ...

taken by ''Look'' magazine photographer James Karales on its cover.

Reception

The series has been hailed by numerous critics as more than just a historical document.

Awards

Both ''Eyes on the Prize'' and ''Eyes on the Prize II'' won

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...

s and

Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award The Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award honors excellence in broadcast and digital journalism in the public service and is considered one of the most prestigious awards in journalism. The awards were established in 1942 and administered ...

s. The series also won six

. Episode six, ''Bridge to Freedom'', produced by

Callie Crossley Callie Crossley is an American broadcast journalist and radio presenter in the Boston area. In March 2013 she began hosting a new radio program entitled ''Under the Radar with Callie Crossley'' and continues to contribute to WGBH Radio's "Bosto ...

and James A. DeVinney, was nominated for an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

for Best Documentary Feature in 1988 during the

60th Academy Awards The 60th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), took place on April 11, 1988, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles beginning at 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time Zone, PDT. During the ceremon ...

.The Ten-Year Lunch Wins Documentary Feature: 1988 Oscars
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References

External links

''Eyes on the Prize I'' Interviews Collection
American Archive of Public Broadcasting
''Eyes on the Prize'' SeriesTeacher study guidePBS Lesson Plans
Washington University Library

Washington University's Film and Media Archive

Washington University's Film and Media Archive * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Eyes On The Prize 1980s American documentary television series 1987 American television series debuts 1987 in American television 1990 American television series endings 1990s American documentary television series American Experience Civil rights movement in television Documentary films about African Americans Documentary films about the civil rights movement Historical television series Peabody Award-winning television programs