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

Eyes on the Prize is a 14-part documentary series narrated by Julian Bond, covering all of the major events of the African-American Civil Rights Movement from 1954 - 1985. The series is in two stages - America's Civil Rights Years 1954-1964 and America at the Racial Crossroads 1965-1985. The first six episodes - Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954-1964 - cover the time period between the Brown v. Board decision and the Selma to Montgomery marches. The remaining 8 episodes - Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads 1965-1985 - look at the civil rights movement from the streets of Malcolm X's Harlem to the victory celebration for Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor. Through contemporary interviews and historical footage, the series looks at the major events of the African-American Civil Rights Movement in recent American history.

Episode 1 Episode 2 Episode 3 Episode 4

Episode 5 Episode 6

Episode 01 - Awakening 1954 - 1956
Individual acts of courage inspire black Southerners to fight for their rights: Mose Wright testifies against the white men who murdered young Emmett Till, and Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.

Episode 02 - Fighting Back 1957 - 1962
States' rights loyalists and federal authorities collide in the 1957 battle to integrate Little Rock's Central High School, and again in James Meredith's 1962 challenge to segregation at the University of Mississippi.

Episode 03 - Ain't Scared of Your Jails 1960 - 1961
Black college students take a leadership role in the civil rights movement as lunch counter sit-ins spread across the South. "Freedom Riders" also try to desegregate interstate buses, but they are brutally attacked as they travel.

Episode 04 - No Easy Walk 1961 - 1963
The civil rights movement discovers the power of mass demonstrations as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. emerges as its most visible leader. The triumphant March on Washington, D.C., under King's leadership, shows a mounting national support for civil rights.

Episode 05 - Mississippi is This America 1962 - 1964
Mississippi's grass-roots civil rights movement becomes an American concern when college students travel south to help register black voters and three activists are murdered. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenges the regular Mississippi delegation at the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City.

Episode 06 - Bridge to Freedom 1965
A decade of lessons is applied in the climactic and bloody march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. A major victory is won when the federal Voting Rights Bill passes, but civil rights leaders know they have new challenges ahead.