True south : Henry Hampton and Eyes on the prize, the landmark television series that reframed the civil rights movement

First Title Value for Searching:

Personal Author:

Else, Jon, 1944-

Physical Description:

404 pages ; 24 cm.

Summary:

Honors how the eloquent, plainspoken TV series Eyes on the prize about the civil rights era changed the way social history is told, taught, and remembered today; the way nonfiction film is made; and the way we think about the legacies of those eventful years (From book jacket).

Contents:

Introduction -- Cave painting: 1940-67 -- Racism is like a loaded gun: 1968-78 -- America, we loved you madly: 1978-82 -- Last visionary standing: 1983-85 -- The revolution will be televised: 1985 -- Mother ship -- Not the other man's county: fall 1985 -- On the road: 1985-86 -- Mississippi goddamn: 1963, 1964, 1985 -- Crossroads: 1964 -- Emmett Till's hometown: winter 1985 -- Hunter-gatherers: winter 1985-86 -- True south? -- Messy history: 1986 -- The Selma show: 1986 -- It's our flag too: 1986 -- A great story -- A great healing machine: 1987 -- Will the circle be unbroken: 1998 -- Freedom is a constant struggle: 1998-2016 -- Epilogue.

Subject Term:

Civil rights movements -- United States -- History -- 20th century.

African Americans on television

Race relations on television

Publication Info:

New York : Viking, 2017.

Subject:

Civil rights movements -- United States -- History -- 20th century.

African Americans on television

Race relations on television

United States -- Race relations

Hampton, Henry, 1940-1998 -- Criticism and interpretation.

Eyes on the prize (Television program)

Civil liberation movements

Liberation movements (Civil rights)

Protest movements (Civil rights)

Afro-Americans in television

Afro-Americans on television

Race relations in television

African Americans -- Relations with white people

United States -- Race question

White people -- United States -- Relations with African Americans

SAILS ISBN:

9781101980934

Available:

Library	Shelf Number	Shelf Location	Status
Searching... Fairhaven-Millicent	305.8 ELS 2017	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Foxboro - Boyden Library	305.8009 ELSE	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... New Bedford Free Public Library	305.8 ELS 2017	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Henry Hampton's 1987 landmark multipart television series "Eyes On The Prize," an eloquent, plainspoken chronicle of the civil rights movement, is now the classic narrative of that history. Before Hampton, the movement's history been written or filmed by whites and weighted heavily toward Dr. King's telegenic leadership. "Eyes" told the story from the point of view of ordinary people inside the civil rights movement--the "fan ladies" and "ordinary world parishioners," mostly African American. Hampton shifted the focus from victimization to strength, from white saviors to black courage. He recovered and permanently fixed the images we now all remember (but had been lost at the time)-Selma and Montgomery, pickets and firehoses, ballot boxes and mass meetings.

Jon Else was Hampton's series producer, and his moving book focuses on the tumultuous 18 months in 1985 and 1986 when "Eyes" was finally created, a point where many wires cross- the new telling of African American history, the complex mechanics of documentary making, the rise of social justice film, the politics of television ( The Boston Globe and The New York Times published articles about Hampton's bitter funding problems, in which they named major foundations and corporations that had declined to support his telling the civil rights story.) And because Else, like Hampton and many of the key staffers, was himself a veteran of the movement, his book braids together battle tales from their own experiences as civil rights workers in the South in the 1960s.

"Eyes" re-introduced Emmett Till to a world that had forgotten him and showed us the guts it took to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, or walk up the school steps in Little Rock, Arkansas. It chronicled that great expansion of American democracy through legal victories, direct action, voter registration, and legislation. Hampton was not afraid to show the movement's raw realities- conflicts between secular and religious leaders, the shift toward black power and armed black resistance in the face of savage white violence. It is all on the screen, and the fight to get it all into the films was at times as ferocious as the history being depicted. Henry Hampton utterly changed the way social history is told, taught, and remembered today.

Reviews (5)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Else, an accomplished documentarian, chronicles the making of the 1987 TV civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize, created by Henry Hampton, in this ambitious, sweeping chronicle. Hampton emerges as a charismatic leader whose vision was inspiring enough to draw in an amazing team despite his scattered management style. Else, a producer on the series, also describes his own time participating in the 1960s civil rights movement as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In recounting how Hampton and his colleagues treated various turning points-the murder of Emmett Till in 1954 and of three civil rights workers in 1963; the 1955-1956 Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott; the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery marches; and many more-Else finds a new perspective on famous events. In effect, the reader gets to ask the same narrative questions as the documentarians, and feel the same mixture of satisfaction and disappointment when one narrative avenue is chosen over another. Footage isn't unavailable or is mislabeled; eyewitnesses die or exaggerate or don't want to speak at all. Doubtless there were struggles in Prize's making that Else doesn't cover, but his account feels thorough and important as a part of both social and documentary film history. Agent: Flip Brophy, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

Memoir, history, and biography meld in this account of the creation of a famed civil rights documentary.Producer and cinematographer Else (Journalism/Univ. of California Graduate School of Journalism), a MacArthur Fellow whose honors include several Peabody awards and four Emmys, offers a revealing chronicle of the making of the 1987 PBS series Eyes on the Prize. The author became involved in the civil rights movement in 1963 when he was a 19-year-old college student and took up political activist Allard Lowenstein's challenge to "draw fire and publicity in Mississippi" by registering black voters. John Kennedy and Medgar Evers had just been shot, and Else was filled with "missionary zeal." In 1964, he left school to work in Mississippi full time, courting danger in an area where the Ku Klux Klan flourished. Twenty years later, responding to an article in a Corporation for Public Broadcasting newsletter, he "cold-called" Henry Hampton, involved in a project to produce a TV series about the civil rights struggle. Else characterizes Hampton, who had joined the NAACP as an undergraduate at Washington University and who stood with Martin Luther King Jr. on the Pettus bridge in Selma, as nothing less than a genius, a "visionary leader" who "insisted on a bold multicultural, multiethnic, collaborative production process" that involved men and women, blacks and whites: "For him, diversity in teams trumped the powerful statement that an all-black production would have made." Hampton also privileged the voices of ordinary men and women who participated in the movement rather than focus on people and images that had, by 1985, become iconic. Hampton viewed the civil rights movement "as a patriotic story of America's realization of its ideals" and wanted white Americans to react positively to it. In detailing the financial struggle involved and the arduous process of finding interviewees and eliciting their stories, Else reveals the complexities of any such production. An illuminating look at racial strife and TV history. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Distinguished documentarian and MacArthur fellow Else has written a hard-driving, avidly detailed, and dramatic history of the making of Eyes on the Prize, the pioneering 1987 television documentary series about the civil rights movement. His uniquely knowing account is powered by his adventures as series producer and enriched by his vivid and admiring portrait of Henry Hampton (1940-98), the visionary genius and polio survivor who created the series. Their close working relationship was rooted in their experiences working in the early voter-registration efforts in the South. Else crisply illuminates Hampton's mission to focus on the ordinary African Americans who refused to be victims of racism and were, instead, courageous and strategic agents for change. Hampton's radical and progressive innovations extended to his production company, and Else tracks the racist, sexist, political, and financial obstacles confronting Hampton's multicultural, gender-equal, chronically underfunded, talented, and committed staff. In his seemingly frame-by-frame account, Else covers the evolution of American historical television documentaries while telling riveting tales of the epic research, endless production difficulties, and sensitive aesthetic choices that resulted in the triumphant success and lasting influence of Eyes on the Prize. With its many hooks and avenues, compelling portraits, and thought-provoking revelations, this in-depth chronicle of the making of a defining civil rights documentary is an invaluable and timely work.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2016 Booklist

Choice Review

How do you tell the story of the American civil rights movement? A complex story full of politics and great moral questions? Else takes the reader through a fascinating story of how Henry Hampton and his team at Blackside, Inc. created Eyes on the Prize: America in the Civil Rights Years. In this involving work, Else takes the reader behind the scenes to reveal the technical and philosophical debates about how best to present a story essential to understanding American democracy. Should the focus be on charismatic leaders or the ordinary people who often performed the day-to-day work of organizing and resistance? Should the view of those opposed to integration be included? How do you authenticate the truth of the story? This book sheds light on the process of and provokes thought about how we understand key moments in the evolution of American democracy. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. --Kevin Anderson, Eastern Illinois University

Library Journal Review

In 1987, the multipart PBS documentary Eyes on the Prize told the story of the civil rights movement from the perspective of its ordinary members. Here, series producer Else tells the story behind the making of the film. (LJ 12/16) © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Author's Note	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Chapter 1 Cave Painting	p. 5
Chapter 2 "Racism Is Like a Loaded Gun"	p. 28
Chapter 3 America, We Loved You Madly	p. 58
Chapter 4 Last Visionary Standing	p. 77
Chapter 5 The Revolution Will Be Televised	p. 87
Chapter 6 Mother Ship	p. 105
Chapter 7 Not the Other Man's Country	p. 113
Chapter 8 What Have I to Fear?	p. 146
Chapter 9 Mississippi Goddamn	p. 162
Chapter 10 Crossroads	p. 175
Chapter 11 Emmett Till's Hometown	p. 198
Chapter 12 Hunter-gatherers	p. 206
Chapter 13 True South?	p. 226
Chapter 14 Messy History	p. 248
Chapter 15 The Selma Show	p. 276
Chapter 16 It's Our Flag Too	p. 293
Chapter 17 A Great Story	p. 306
Chapter 18 A Great Healing Machine	p. 324
Chapter 19 Will the Circle Be Unbroken	p. 356
Chapter 20 Freedom Is a Constant Struggle	p. 369
Epilogue	p. 377
Acknowledgments	p. 381
Note on Sources	p. 383
Bibliography	p. 385
Index	p. 391

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Summary

Reviews (5)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

Choice Review

Library Journal Review

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