DISCUSSION GUIDE Copyright © 2021 WarnerMedia Direct, LLC, Anonymous Content, LLC and Blackside, Inc. All Rights Reserved INTRODUCTION 3 TIMELINE 6 EVENTS 13 PERSONS 15 SPACES 19 MOVEMENT TOOLKIT 21 EDUCATION TOOLKIT 31 GLOSSARY 40 Contributors 41 Guide to The BY DR. CHARLES H.F. DAVIS III, Scholars for Black Lives More than two decades after the Civil Rights Movement, Henry Hampton’s award-winning 14-part documentary Eyes on the Prize chronicled a transformative period in American social and political history and those individuals closest to the grassroots organizing that made it all possible. Altogether, the film series embodied the Pan-African principle of Sankofa, bringing from the past that which may have otherwise been forgotten. It forced upon a Nation committed to the practice of historical amnesia, an inability to refute its reckoning Introduction and the demonstrable exercise of Black political power. Back to toP Introduction | Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground | 3 Now, more than three decades later, we again disregard, and flat-out erasure of Black women, are being called to remember. As the lingering femme, queer, trans, and non-binary voices. backlash of white resentment continues to infringe And yet this film builds upon Hampton’s work in upon our ability to participate in electoral politics ways that further a necessary queering of the equitably, Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground (2021) proverbial ‘color line,’ not only in representation helps remind us we have been here before. but in its visions for a world that demands the It serves as a marker whereby we can understand destruction of what we know in exchange for what once seemed impossible was nonetheless building what we can imagine. achievable, even if only through the unrelenting political will and steadfast determination of In no uncertain terms, Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed our people. Ground is a definitive cultural and political artifact of our time. It moves us in all the ways great art What is more, at a time when the American can make the familiar strange and the strange democratic project continues to fail to be as familiar while also guiding us in recognizing good as its promise—and nearly half of all U.S. important themes across the (her)story of Black states have introduced or passed bills restricting political struggle. Quite remarkably, it brings us educators from telling the truth about our Nation’s into a closer relationship with our ancestors as endemic racism—this film offers an important well as our contemporaries in a recognizable resource for parents, families, and communities call and response between the past and the who refuse to forget. present. As a companion to Hampton’s original, this film is not merely a bridge, but rather acts As a movement scholar and documentarian, as a portal through which we can see the two I constantly wonder about how our collective work dimensions of time as a continuum along with the will help create communities of memory for the ever-present expectation and possibility of Black future of Black study and Black struggle. I often futures in which we can all be free. Our freedom compel myself to consider the choices we are is intimately connected to justice, which, in the making in a content-driven economy and whether context of abolition, recognizes the presence of we are willing to tell the truth about what has and Black life as a precondition. In this way, this film continues to happen in our fight for the right to compels us to imagine “the prize” as neither an self-determination. This is especially important indictment nor a verdict, not rhetoric or reform. considering much of what has been written about Rather, justice is Breonna and George and a generations-long movement for Black lives have Freddie and Mike and Trayvon and you and I needed constant revision to redress the dismissal, still being here. Back to toP Introduction | Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground | 4 1938 1950 1952 1954 ELLA BAKER GWENDOLYN BROOKS MALCOLM X BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION Ella Baker begins her association Gwendolyn Brooks becomes Malcolm X joins the Nation with the National Association the first African-American to win of Islam (NOI). His leadership In the landmark Brown v. Board for the Advancement of Colored the Pulitzer Prize with Annie as a minister and national of Education, the Supreme Court People (NAACP) as a civil rights Allen, a volume of poetry. spokesperson for NOI helped reverses Plessy v. Ferguson, activist, organizer, mentor and grow membership from 500 declaring that “separate but leader. Before, during and after to 300,000 by 1963. equal” public education is This timeline of the Black Power her time with the NAACP, Baker unconstitutional. In the coming Movement is a general guide inspired, guided, and taught years, civil rights activists that aims to briefly highlight past many in the fight for civil rights will chip away the remaining in the United States through the vestiges of legal discrimination, events, figures, and accomplishments Southern Christian Leadership from segregated buses and connected to the Movement, Conference (SCLC), the Student restaurants to voting rights. and the original Eyes on the Prize Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and documentary. This timeline was the Southern Conference curated to act as a bridge from Education Fund. the past into the present day and the Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground documentary. It is by no means reflective of every major event or figure in the Movement. Timeline Back to toP tiMELINE | Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground | 6 1955 1956 1957 1960 1961 EMMETT TILL ROSA PARKS ALTHEA GIBSON MARTIN LUTHER STUDENT THE FREEDOM RIDERS KING, JR. NONVIOLENT On August 28th, 14-year-old On December 1st, Rosa Parks, Future Tennis Hall of Famer COORDINATING The Freedom Riders ride Emmett Till was beaten, shot, a 43-year-old Black woman, Althea Gibson becomes Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, COMMITTEE (SNCC) interstate buses from lynched, and murdered on the refuses to give up her seat the first Black person to win Jr. and other Black ministers Washington, DC through the Jim banks of the Tallahatchie River on a Montgomery, Alabama city a Grand Slam tournament form the Southern Christian Black college students founded Crow south to New Orleans, to in Mississippi by white men for bus to a white man. Her arrest by winning the French Open. Leadership Conference (SCLC) the Student Nonviolent confront the non-enforcement of his encounter with a white sparks a Black boycott of the city Gibson continued to make to bring an end to desegregation. Coordinating Committee (SNCC). federal desegregation laws. woman. His mother, Mamie Till, buses. Martin Luther King, Jr., history by becoming the first The SCLC adopts nonviolent The organization is dedicated insists on an open casket at his a relatively unknown 26-year-old Black person to win Wimbledon protest as the cornerstone of its to ending segregation and funeral so the world can see Baptist minister, becomes the in 1957 and 1958. strategy and builds alliances with giving young Black folks a the brutality inflicted on her son. spokesperson and organizer of local community organizations stronger voice in the civil rights the boycott and is catapulted into across the South. movement. SNCC members demonstrate the efficacy of JAMES BALDWIN national prominence. In 1956, the Supreme Court declared nonviolent sit-ins, a tactic other On November 21st, James that segregation on buses is civil rights groups soon take up. Baldwin’s collection of essays, unconstitutional, forcing buses Notes of a Native Son, throughout the U.S is published. The essays explore to desegregate. the function of racial, sexual and class distinctions in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. Back to toP tiMELINE | Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground | 7 BLACK POWER FANNIE LOU HAMER MEDGAR EVERS PAULI MURRAY SNCC, now headed by Stokely Fannie Lou Hamer speaks WATTS UPRISING Carmichael (later known as On June 12th, Medgar Evers is at the 1964 Democratic National Civil rights and women’s rights Kwame Ture), shifts from assassinated in front of his home MUHAMMAD ALI Convention as their representing From August 11th to August 16th, activist Pauli Murray became the nonviolence to embrace a at age 37, in Jackson, Mississippi. delegate. Despite her televised the Watts Uprising (or Rebellion) first Black American to receive a doctrine of "Black Power," which His wife, Myrlie Evers fought for On March 6th, Heavyweight testimony getting cut by took place in California after Los Doctor of Juridical Science from emphasizes Black nationalism, and preserved his legacy. She Boxing Champion Cassius Clay President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Angeles Police beat 21-year-old Yale Law School. Later in 1977, self-reliance, and self-defense. sought justice for his murder changes his name to Muhammad speech, major networks replayed Marquette Frye in front of the Murray also became the first The Congress for Racial Equity for over 30 years until Medgar Ali­­—aligning with his Muslim Hamer’s speech for the entire community. The uprising engulfs Black woman to be ordained as (CORE) endorses Black Power Evers’s killer was found guilty. faith and affiliation with the NOI. nation to hear. a 46-mile area of Los Angeles. an Episcopal priest. along with SNCC. 1963 1964 1965 1966 “I HAVE A DREAM” MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT MALCOLM X VOTING RIGHTS ACT BLACK PANTHERS DEMOCRATIC PARTY (ASSASSINATED) On August 28th, Reverend Dr. (MFDP) The Civil Rights Act is passed. Congress passes the Voting Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers The Act effectively desegregates Malcolm X (el-Hajj Malik Rights Act in 1965, which co-found the Black Panthers in his iconic “I Have a Dream” Fannie Lou Hamer, an activist public facilities, stating: el-Shabazz) is assassinated prohibits racial discrimination Oakland, California.