Citizendia

For the folk song, see Keep Your Eyes on the Prize. " Keep Your Eyes on the Prize " is a Folk song that became influential during the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s

Eyes on the Prize is a 14-hour documentary series about the African-American Civil Rights Movement. The American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968 refers to the reform movements in the United States aimed at abolishing racial discrimination against African The series uses archival footage to record the growth of the civil rights movement in the United States, with special focus on the ordinary people who affected the change. Stock footage, and similarly archive footage, library pictures and file footage are Film or Video The United States of America —commonly referred to as the It was created and executive-produced by Henry Hampton at Blackside, Inc. Henry Hampton ( August 19, 1940 - November 22, 1998) was the founder of film production company Blackside Inc

The series has been hailed as more than just a historical document. Clayborne Carson, a Stanford University history professor and editor of the published papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., remarked that "it is the principal film account of the most important American social justice movement of the 20th century". Clayborne Carson (born June 15, 1944) is a professor of History at Stanford University and director of the Martin Luther King Jr Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University or simply Stanford, is a private Research university located in Martin Luther King Jr ( January 15, 1929 April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, Activist and prominent leader Because of its extensive use of primary sources and in-depth coverage of the material, it has been adopted as a key reference and record of the civil rights movement. Primary source is a term used in a number of disciplines In Historiography, a primary source (also called original source) is a Document, Recording

It has also seen extensive use in schools and other educational settings as a way to convey the experiences and history of that period in the struggle for civil rights.

The title of the series is derived from the song "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize", which is used in each episode as the opening theme music. " Keep Your Eyes on the Prize " is a Folk song that became influential during the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s

Contents

Original broadcast and later releases

The film originated as two sequential projects. Part one, six hours long, was shown on PBS in early 1987 as Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years (1954–1965). The Public Broadcasting Service ( PBS) is a Non-profit Public broadcasting Television service with 354 member TV stations in the Year 1987 ( MCMLXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar) Eight more hours were broadcast in 1990 as Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads (1965–1985).

By the mid-1990s, the series was unavailable on video or broadcast television, due to limits on the licenses of the copyrights of the archival footage used. Copyright is a legal concept enacted by Governments, giving the creator of an original work of authorship Exclusive rights to control its distribution usually for [1] Grants from the Ford Foundation and others enabled Blackside to renew rights. The Ford Foundation is a Private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by [2] To date, PBS has rebroadcast the first six hours on three consecutive Mondays in October 2006,[3] and has begun rebroadcasting the second eight hours in February 2008. [4]

PBS reissued an educational version of the series in the fall of 2006, making it available on DVD for the first time. [5] It is now available to educational institutions and libraries from PBS on seven DVDs (ISBN 0-7936-9262-8) or seven VHS tapes. These versions are not licensed for individual consumer sales. [6] It is unclear whether any of the footage has been changed to appease rights holders.

Book

The book of the same title by journalist Juan Williams and the staff at Blackside (hardcover ISBN 0-670-81412-1, paperback ISBN 0-245-54668-5) was created as a companion volume to the series; it was published by Viking in 1987. Juan Williams (b April 1954 is an American Journalist, Author and Radio and Television correspondent

Controversies

Independent of the producers, the organization Downhill Battle initiated the "Eyes on the Screen" project, along with civil rights activist Lawrence Guyot, in January of 2005 to encourage the use of file sharing networks such as BitTorrent to distribute the film - without regard for copyright restrictions. Downhill Battle is a Non-profit organization based in Worcester Massachusetts. Lawrence Guyot born July 17, 1939 in Pass Christian Mississippi) is a Civil rights activist who was the head of the Mississippi Freedom Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. See Shared resource for the conventional meaning of file sharing File sharing refers to the providing and receiving of digital files over a BitTorrent is a Peer-to-peer File sharing protocol used to distribute large amounts of Data. They also called for people to display the film, particularly on February 8, during Black History Month. Events 421 - Constantius III becomes co- Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Black History Month is a remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora.

Others took exception to Downhill's use of the series as a tool in the cause of challenging existing copyright law. [7] Some affiliated with the production of the series (particularly producer Henry Hampton's family) have objected that a series about the civil rights movement had now been repositioned as an icon of the copyright reform movement. [8] They pointed out that widespread distribution of illegal copies would make investors and donors less interested in funding a public re-release.

As a result, soon after their campaign began, Downhill Battle removed their BitTorrent links and issued a statement asking that all digital and illegal copies of the series be destroyed. [9] They expressed the hope "that our efforts have not interfered with Blackside's efforts" to bring back the series to the public. The campaign instead began to emphasize the promotion of public screening of the series in each state.

Meanwhile, the Eyes on the Screen campaign had been endorsed by groups such as the Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, who wrote: "Therefore, in the spirit of the Southern Freedom Movement, we who once defied the laws and customs that denied people of color their human rights and dignity, we whose faces are seen in "Eyes on the Prize," we who helped produce it, tonight defy the media giants who have buried our story in their vaults by publicly sharing episodes of this forbidden knowledge with all who wish to see it. "[10][11]


Episodes

Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954–1964

Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads 1965–1985

References

  1. ^ Eyes on the Rights - The Rising Cost of Putting History on Screen, by Sheila Curran Bernard, Documentary Online Magazine, June 05 Issue, International Documentary Association. Retrieved 2008-02-21.
  2. ^ Cash Rescues Eyes on the Prize, by Katie Dean, Wired. com, 08-30-2005. Retrieved 2008-02-21.
  3. ^ A Special Presentation of American Experience: Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement, 1954–1985, PBS. org. Retrieved 2008-02-21.
  4. ^ PBS News: PBS Celebrates Black History Month with an Extensive Lineup of Special Programming, PBS. org. Retrieved 2008-02-21.
  5. ^ PBS Education - Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement DVD 7PK - AV Item
  6. ^ http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/shoppbs/av_rights.html
  7. ^ Eyes on the Prize is most definitely NOT commonsized, Sharp-Tools. net. Retrieved 2008-02-21.
  8. ^ Sharp Tools: Eyes on the Prize is most definitely NOT commonsized
  9. ^ http://www.downhillbattle.org/eyes/statement.php
  10. ^ [1]
  11. ^ http://downhillbattle.org/eyes/bavcrm.php

External links

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