The brand new collection “Eyes on the Prize III,” which covers the civil rights motion from 1977 to 2015, has been in growth for a few years. The truth that it arrives on HBO Tuesday, within the midst of an all-out assault on range that threatens to roll again the progress chronicled within the first two “Eyes” collection, is a fluke of timing.
However even when that wasn’t deliberate, govt producer Daybreak Porter isn’t complaining.
“There’s no better time for this series to be coming out,” she mentioned in a latest interview. “It’s so difficult to tell history and to tell what actually happened now. Today we have this assault on equality and efforts to make sure that we have a level playing field. I refuse to say ‘DEI’ because it has been weaponized in a way that is wholly inappropriate.”
The primary “Eyes,” which premiered on PBS in 1987, was created by Henry Hampton and is a canonical work of not simply the civil rights motion but in addition the docuseries format. In telling the story of the motion from 1954 to 1965 — the important thing years of marches, sit-ins, grassroots organizing and federal laws together with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — it introduced the scope of the wrestle to a broad viewers. Its narrative strands included not simply main historic figures, like Martin Luther King Jr., who wasn’t but well-known when he spearheaded the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, but in addition women and men who put their lives on the road for equality — individuals like Moses Wright, who recognized the white males who kidnapped and brutally murdered his nice nephew, 14-year-old Emmett Until, that very same yr.
The second “Eyes,” which premiered in 1990 and is nearly inconceivable to view outdoors of faculties resulting from licensing points, picks up the place the unique left off and goes by the mid-’80s. And the brand new collection, subtitled “We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest,” takes us by the Obama presidency and to the brink of the primary Trump administration, which introduced a preview of the present and overt hostility to all that was gained within the civil rights motion. (HBO will air two episodes back-to-back every night time by Thursday, and all episodes might be out there to stream on Max beginning Tuesday.)
“We are right back where we started,” mentioned Smriti Mundhra, who directed Episode 5 of the brand new collection. “There’s this sort of boogeyman attack on DEI and what have you, and it’s all part of the same narrative. There’s a swift backlash when there’s any progress. That’s not to say that progress won’t happen. I think it’s two steps forward, one-and-three-quarter step back. And that hasn’t changed in generations.”
“Eyes On The Prize III” consists of episodes about affirmative motion, environmental racism and the AIDS disaster.
(Courtesy of HBO)
The episode directed by Mundhra, “We Don’t See Color 1996-2013,” seems to be on the struggle on affirmative motion — the motion to fight racism in schooling, employment and elsewhere and the forerunner to what’s now generally referred to as DEI — and the combat to maintain public colleges built-in, within the spirit of the Supreme Court docket’s 1954 Brown vs. Board of Training determination. Like the opposite episodes, which deal with points together with honest housing, environmental racism (which frequently boils all the way down to company poisonous chemical accidents in minority neighborhoods), and the disproportionate impact of the AIDS disaster on minorities, this one is usually extra fascinated about organizers and activists on the bottom than high-profile names.
Porter sees one throughline from the unique docuseries to the brand new one because the significance of on a regular basis individuals taking dangers to do courageous issues.
“I think that there’s a perception that the civil rights movement was only in the 1960s,” she mentioned. “Part of the message of the entire series is that civil rights activity continues. I hope that this series does emphasize that we are never fully powerless. We just have to be more creative about our resistance. These are hopeful stories, but they’re also true.”
Watching the unique collection is a reminder of how a lot issues have modified, even when they often really feel the identical. There’s one thing about that first “Eyes” that feels remarkably pure and purposeful. It’s not arduous to really feel outrage on the sight of sheriffs siccing police canines on harmless protesters, or gangs of toughs beating Black school college students for sitting at a lunch counter. Modern challenges are extra advanced, if no much less pressing.
“Today, discrimination takes much more subtle forms,” Porter mentioned. “So you pollute where Black and brown people live, you refuse to allow them housing, you over-police them. 2025 is closer to 1968 than to 1988. So the next group in 10 years that does ‘Eyes,’ we’ll see how they approach it because I do think that this series will live on.”
If it does, it would have fairly a narrative to inform.
“I feel like there’s no way to swim against this tide that’s coming,” Mundhra mentioned. “I hope that this series will remind people that we know how to fight, and we can fight again. It’s okay to feel despondent, but it’s time to summon our resolve.”
Or, as Porter places it: “It’s hard to feel active when you’re suffering, but we got to get up.”
