It’s the definitive filmed documentary of the civil rights era.
Nearly two decades after its 1987 premiere, “Eyes on the Prize” returns to the air Monday on PBS’ “American Experience” (9 p.m., Channel 9) with the first of three weekly two-hour installments that cover the struggle for equality from the Montgomery bus boycott to the Voting Rights Act.
Produced by the late filmmaker Henry Hampton, “Eyes on the Prize” recounts the fight to end decades of discrimination and segregation where whites and blacks could not attend the same school, ride the same bus or otherwise share equally in American life. The tale is told from the point of view of ordinary men and women whose extraordinary actions launched a movement that, however belatedly, helped America make good on its most basic promises.
The first installment includes “Awakenings – 1954-56,” which chronicles individual acts of courage that inspired black Southerners to fight for what was due them: Mose Wright testifying against the white men who murdered young Emmett Till, and Rosa Parks refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala.
Then, at 10 p.m., “Fighting Back – 1957-1962” charts the collision of states’ rights loyalists with federal authorities in the 1957 battle to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School, and then again with James Meredith’s 1962 challenge to segregation at the University of Mississippi. In both instances, a Southern governor squared off with a U.S. president; violence erupted; integration was carried out.
Subsequent editions will air Oct. 9 and 16, concluding with “Bridge to Freedom – 1965” and passage of the Voter Rights Bill.
Eight additional hours of this much-honored series will air in the future.
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