True South: Henry Hampton and ‘Eyes on the Prize,’ the Landmark Television Series That Reframed the Civil Rights Series

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. [em]Agent: Flip Brophy, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Jan.) [/em]