Review: ‘Eyes On The Prize’

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

On Sunday, I briefly mentioned in the homily that I recently watched the documentary, "Eyes on the Prize." Below is a piece that I wrote as a kind of review, in case you may be interested. 

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“Eyes on the Prize”

A Review

Presvytera Deborah and I have just completed a remarkable documentary on television called “Eyes On the Prize.” This was made as far back as 1987, but has recently been revived on both PBS and Amazon Prime. It is now considered a “classic.” The documentary is comprised of six one hour segments. “Eyes on the Prize” covers the tumultuous decade of roughly 1955 – 1965, the crucial decade of the Civil Rights movement. The documentary begins with Rosa Park’s courageous stance as a black woman who rode in the white section of a Montgomery, Alabama bus, leading eventually to a massive city-wide boycott by black citizens. The culmination of this early protest movement was the integration of both white and black citizens riding on the bus system as equals. The series comes to a fitting conclusion with President Lyndon Johnson signing into legislation the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a bill that gave African-Americans the full legal status of voting citizens. That it took an entire century for this to happen from the time of the Civil War to 1965 is one of the most baffling and troubling pages in American history.

What is so compelling in “Eyes on the Prize” is the simultaneous coverage of the African American community’s organized drive toward freedom and equality, and the equally determined effort of resistance to this pursuit of freedom by white Americans. It was a struggle of titanic proportions. The documentary’s combination of powerful archival film and the interviews of both freedom fighters and white supremacists was totally captivating. It was like a battle of wills and resources. And it important to state openly that there was nothing remotely resembling “moral equivalency” between the two sides. One side stood on grounds of moral integrity and righteousness; while the other side was mired in an immoral and unrighteous stance.

This decade from the mid-1950’s and its relentless movement into the 1960’s was charged with powerful centrifugal forces as the Civil Rights movement was enmeshed with the polarization caused by the War in Vietnam, and the stretching of accepted boundaries of social and moral discourse - and “lifestyle changes” - caused by the counter-cultural efforts often labeled as the “hippie movement.” For those of us old enough to remember those tense times, we can probably draw some real parallels with our current social and cultural polarization based on the equally intertwined issues of the Covid pandemic, a divisive presidential election, and the revival of the “race question” in America. I am a strong proponent of the position that to understand the present, we must understand the past which has shaped the present. That is why the issues, the achievements and the failures documented in “Eyes on the Prize” have a gripping relevancy to them as we, as Americans, are again grappling with a myriad of similar issues around the “race question.” All this in contemporary America well over a half century after its supposed resolution.

Some of the key events that earn well-documented coverage over the course of six episodes are the following:

• The Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 and its aftermath.
• The brutal killing of the black teen Emmet Till and the aftermath of the failed conviction of his killers. Nevertheless, the attention of the nation was drawn to this egregious crime.
• The assassination of Medgar Evers and the killing of three freedom riders (a black man, James Chancey; and two white men, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwemer) in Mississippi).
• The attempted integration and resistance to it of the public school systems and universities in Alabama and Mississippi.
• The tension between the federal government and local state governments in the southern states over racial integration.
• The March on Washington of 1963 with an assembled crowd numbering 250,000 protesters – both black and white - culminating in Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech.
• The bombing of a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, resulting in the deaths of four young black girls only twenty-three days later.
• Focus on the campaign of young idealistic students – both white and black - to promote voting rights in Mississippi and the violent reaction against this basic civil right of all American citizens.
• The Selma to Montgomery march that caught the attention of the nation as this peaceful protest march resulted in a violent backlash by Southern authorities.
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights bill of 1965

The stark contrast between the dignity, courage, perseverance, and sense of the moral rightness of their cause among the black citizens of the South; with the open bigotry, prejudice, violence and hatred of many white Southerners is quite overwhelming throughout the entire course of this documentary. It makes your blood boil. For there is no other word that can describe the violent resistance that white people resorted to in order to thwart this compelling movement for equality before the law, equal dignity among citizens, and a recognition of the humanity of African Americans, than hatred. In interview after interview of white officials – former Alabama governor George Wallace and the infamous Bull Connors being two high-profile examples - one hears an unapologetic defense of racial prejudice that assumes black inferiority.

In fact, it was George Wallace whose blasphemous paraphrase/parody of Hebrews 13:8 – “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” – by publicly stating: “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever” - most succinctly expressed white resistance to black demands for civil rights. How jarring those words sound today! On the other hand, a nationally-televised audience heard more hopeful words from President Lyndon B. Johnson, shortly before the Voting Rights Act was signed on August 6, 1965: “Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome this crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”

I would like to explore this dark side of human nature just a bit more, as this really caught our attention. There is no denial that hatred remains as real as it is irrational. Of course, the violence unleashed on the “Negro” (though an inappropriate term today, this was the accepted term at that time for African American citizens), was very disturbing. Besides the assassination of key Civil Rights figures, such as Medgar Evers, the three freedom riders and others (with no one ever convicted for these crimes), culminating in the sickening bombing of a black church in which four young black girls were killed; together with countless beatings, the attacks of vicious dogs and the turning of fire hoses on black demonstrators (including children); there is image after image caught on camera  of white faces distorted and twisted by hatred – men, women and young adults – as they hurl their usual racial epithets at peacefully marching black people. When Dr. King experienced this same hatred “up north” during a protest march in Chicago for fair and equal-housing opportunities for black citizens, he found it both shocking and intimidating. The questions that inevitably arise are: Just where does such hatred come from? How do law-abiding and church-going citizens mercilessly beat and hate other human being because of the color of their skin? How is such hatred passed down from generation to generation? Is it about power, or the fear of the “other?”

I miss the Christian dimension of this past Civil Rights movement compared to today, for it was the teaching of Christ, a firm belief that God blesses a righteous cause, and the capacity to endure pain in the practice of non-violent resistance, that was clearly a testament to the Christian faith that was so eloquently presented by Dr. Martin Luther King, and practiced by young black men and women with such fortitude. I think this documentary could have focused more attention precisely on the role of the “black Church” and its leaders in both promoting and fighting for racial equality. Prayer and effective sermonizing played huge roles in inspiring that generation of Civil Rights proponents. I would have also wanted to see some further examination of “white churches” in the South. To what extent did they abide or resist the surrounding bigotry, perhaps from their actual parishioners?  There exists an unresolvable tension between the Gospel and racial bigotry. How was that tension handled by white pastors, ministers and preachers?

As taught and practiced within the Civil Rights movement, non-violence was an effective reaction to white hatred and bigotry. The black leaders studied the methods of Ghandi and did their best to implement them into the American context of a segregated South. We have to appreciate the discipline and courage of the protestors who knew that they were going to be beaten and perhaps killed in this context. This was captured on film when black protestors sat at  “white only” lunch counters in North Carolina. These young people were ripped from their chairs, thrown to the floor and beaten as the police stood my in passive complicity with this expression of mob violence. Hard not to be impressed! There is some interesting archival footage of the training sessions these young black protesters underwent, together with their white supporters.

“Eyes on the Prize” also documents the growing tension between the leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) – the first president of which was Dr. Martin Luther King - and the Students Nonviolence Coordinating Committee (SNCC). It was the more youthful leadership of SNCC that began to challenge the principle of non-violence consistently taught by Dr. King throughout his life. After so much violence inflicted upon the protesters, the effectiveness of non-violence resistance was proving to be far too weak for many in the movement.  Stokely Carmichael was the leading voice from SNCC whose fiery rhetoric led to the “Black Power” movement that would culminate in the formation of such groups as the Black Panthers.

James Baldwin once famously said: “History is not the past. History is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history.” To even begin to understand the troubling issue of “race relations” or “racial (in)equality” in the present moment in our society, one must have an informed grasp of the entire history of slavery in America; the Civil War; Reconstruction; Jim Crow segregation; and the Civil Rights Movement of roughly 1955-1965. “Eyes on the Prize” will offer a documentary that will at least fully inform you of the more recent Civil Rights Movement. There are heroes and there are villains. There are moments of intensity and brutality. And there are moments of overwhelming sadness – the murder of the four black girls in Montgomery, AL, is gut-wrenching and heartbreaking. Yet, there are moments of lofty inspiration, of soaring rhetoric in which one hears the words of the biblical prophets, and of undaunted and inextinguishable courage that are deeply moving. The power of a righteous cause is as compelling as unrighteous resistance is repellent.

The Civil Rights movement of 1955-1965 has to be considered the greatest social movement in American history. It was truly a battle for “the soul of America.” For those of us who lived through those years, this documentary is a worthwhile backward glance that reminds us that the struggle for human dignity exists at the most basic level of human existence. For those born after the Civil Rights movement in need of historical context to better understand what is going on today, and to perhaps be inspired by youthful and purposeful idealism, “Eyes on the Prize” will prove to be a worthy primer. 

Fr. Steven