It's official: our Salon evenings are about to begin. Starting Thursday, February 10th,over a period of a few weeks, we will be screening the documentary film series Eyes on the Prize.
About the film:
Eyes on the Prize, produced by an African-American film and television production company, is one of the best resources available on the US Civil Rights Movement. The producers included extensive archival footage and took great pains to present the perspective of those who were directly involved in the struggle, using interviews with individuals who participated, and highlighting the efforts of the many people whose grass-roots work made radical social change possible, but whose stories are not often told. As many of you already know, Michael was very active in the Civil Rights Movement himself, and is very familiar with many of the events and people depicted.
Because of its focus on the grass-roots community organizing that characterized the US Civil Rights Movement, Eyes on the Prize is not just a powerful historical archive, but an important resource for social justice organizing at any time and/or place. And it has particular resonance for the Roma Rights movement in Europe today.
Unfortunately, Eyes on the Prize, which was first aired in 1987, can no longer be shown on television, nor can new copies be sold. Because of the enormous amount of archival footage used in the 6-hour program, the filmmakers initially could only afford to purchase a limited period of rights to much of the footage. Once those licensing rights expired, it became increasingly more difficult to find and view this extraordinary documentary.
Schedule:
The series is made up of six one-hour episodes, so we plan to show 2 episodes at a time. The first showing will be on Thursday, February 10th. We will show the next two episodes on Thursday, February 24th, and the final two in March.
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