Oscar-nominated Eyes on the Prize, the critically-acclaimed documentary on America’s 20th century civil rights movement, will broadcast on WORLD Channel Sundays at 8/7c starting January 17, 2016. Clayborne Carson, Martin Luther King Jr. Centennial Professor of History at Stanford University, called Eyes on the Prize, “the principal film account of the most important American social justice movement of the 20th century.”
Eyes on the Prize: Then and Now, a 30-minute special feature hosted by Al Letson featuring interviews with Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, Congressman John Lewis, image activist Michaela Angela Davis, will also premiere January 17th, setting the groundbreaking documentary in the context of today.
With the current national spotlight on issues of race, inequality, and police brutality in America, the time is right for the nation’s recent civil rights history to be front and center as an essential part of the public dialogue. Eyes on the Prize can provide prospective for a new generation, and be a touchstone for the citizens who lived through one of the most turbulent and extraordinary periods in America.
Interested in learning more about the civil rights movement? POV has featured a number of films that provide crucial context and testimony around Black history and leaders. The four films below are available for free from the POV Lending Library and each have free resources for teachers and community members, including standards-aligned lesson plans, discussion guides and reading lists. For a comprehensive list of resources available from POV, head over to our collection of resources around Black history and the civil rights movement.
American Revolutionary: Grace Lee Boggs, 98, is a Chinese American philosopher, writer, and activist in Detroit with a thick FBI file and a surprising vision of what an American revolution can be. Rooted for 75 years in the labor, civil rights and Black Power movements, she challenges a new generation to throw off old assumptions, think creatively and redefine revolution for our times.
The Barber of Birmingham: In this 2012 Oscar-nominated short film, Alabama barber and civil rights veteran James Armstrong experiences the fulfillment of an unimaginable dream: the election of the first African-American president.
Brother Outsider: During his 60-year career as an activist, organizer and “troublemaker,” Bayard Rustin formulated many of the strategies that propelled the American civil rights movement. But his open homosexuality forced him to remain in the background, marking him again and again as a “brother outsider.” Brother Outsider: the Life of Bayard Rustin combines rare archival footage — some of it never before broadcast in the U.S. — with provocative interviews to illuminate the life and work of a forgotten prophet of social change.
Revolution ’67: An illuminating account of events too often relegated to footnotes in U.S. history — the black urban rebellions of the 1960s. Focusing on the six-day Newark, N.J., outbreak in mid-July, Revolution ’67 reveals how the disturbances began as spontaneous revolts against poverty and police brutality and ended as fateful milestones in America’s struggles over race and economic justice.
Join the conversation on Twitter by following the hashtags #EyesOnThePrize and #PrizeThenAndNow. Where were you when Eyes on the Prize first aired on PBS in 1987?
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