Starting on July 2, GBH 2 will air the first six episodes of the landmark civil rights series Eyes on the Prize on Fridays at 7pm until August 6. Each episode is introduced with a new commentary by GBH News’ Callie Crossley, host of GBH’s Basic Black.
Crossley, who also hosts Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and is a contributor to Beat the Press, produced two episodes of the 1987 series. One of those, Bridge to Freedom, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1988.
Eyes on the Prize, created by Executive Producer Henry Hampton, is an award-winning and critically-acclaimed in-depth documentary series on civil rights in America. Hampton set out to share his vision of what he called “the remarkable human drama that was the Civil Rights Movement” through the experiences and challenges of those fighting for justice. Produced by Blackside, Inc., Eyes on the Prize tells the definitive story of the Civil Rights era from the point of view of the ordinary men and women whose extraordinary actions launched a movement that changed the fabric of American life and embodied a struggle whose reverberations continue to be felt today.
With contemporary interviews and historical footage, the Academy Award-nominated documentary traces the civil rights movement from the Montgomery bus boycott to the Voting Rights Act; from early acts of individual courage through the flowering of a mass movement and its eventual split into factions. The late Julian Bond, political leader and civil rights activist, narrates.
Eyes on the Prize won numerous awards including the duPont-Columbia Gold Baton Award and Peabody Awards in 1988 and 1991, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
In conjunction with these special broadcasts, PBS LearningMedia is offering Civil Rights: Then and Now, a special collection that lends context to the events and leaders that defined the Civil Rights Movement and also capture the issues and activists involved in the struggle today.
Watch: Eyes On The Prize trailer
