Keeping our Eyes on "Eyes on the Prize"

by Cliopatria

I love the Eyes on the Prize video series. It is incredibly vivid, utilizes some of the most astounding footage from the civil rights era, and Julian Bond had the perfect voice for the narrative. Sure, it hews too much to a chronological structure that most historians of the topic have broadened significantly. The second series (1990) helps to remedy this by taking the study all the way to the 1980s, though it probably becomes ma bit diffuse by that point. But on the whole, on my list of epic multi-volume video series, Eyes wins by a knockout (or, in keeping with the nonviolent tradition, perhaps I should say it wins by a mile). It is more vibrant that any of Ken Burns’ masterworks, and any documentary series that has followed owes a debt of gratitude to the late Henry Hampton and his Blackside Production Company.

My admiration for the two series, most of which I show to my undergraduate civil rights course, is not some sort of esoteric fetishism. Most civil rights historians express their admiration for the series, and even scholars of other periods or themes usually will show an episode in their classes to provide students with a feel that even the best lecturer could not possibly match. This is why it has been especially perplexing to many of us that the series is no longer available for purchase. According to this story in the Washington Post the reason for this is that rights to footage, photos and music that give the series its characteristic poignancy have expired. These licenses are expensive. Indeed, the costs of getting them renewed can now be prohibitive, as in the past decade or so what was once the domain of scholars and documentarians has become big business.

I was at a history and film conference once where the filmmaker Jayne Loader (of “Atomic Café” fame) told of the cost explosion of these permissions. This was nearly ten years ago. One can imagine that this crisis has only gotten worse. Losing this sort of footage and music would be a tragedy. I can say without much hyperbole that my first viewing of the Eyes series pretty much determined the course of my career as a civil rights historian.

The good news is that six months ago the Ford Foundation provided a $65,000 grant to Filmmakers Collaborative, an organization of documentary filmmakers, to begin the process of untangling the web of renewing footage rights for the series. Blackside should know by the end of the month how feasible it will be to get Hampton’s masterwork back out in distribution. Let us hope that this can happen. Let us also hope that someone can concoct a creative solution to this vexing issue of rights so that we can protect copyright but still ensure that our colleagues in documentary filmmaking have access to the footage and music they need to prodiuce the next generation’s Eyes on the Prize.

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Derek Charles Catsam - 1/21/2005

David --
My bad on "Jayne Loader." thanks for reading and for pointing it out. I'll make the correction.
Copyright law and fair use are tricky. I think we all want that fine line to exist -- we want our work and that of our colleagues to be protected but we also do not want things to be so restricted that historical writing becomes anything like securing rights for documentaries.
One aspect of writing books has in fact become frighteningly expensive and restrictive: ask anyone who has written a book with pictures about the cost and hassle of securing photograph rights. lots of folks have reached a point of actually having to write grants for funding, either inside their institution or increasingly outside, simply to pay for getting pictures published.

dc

Ralph E. Luker - 1/21/2005

There is a tension between "fair use" and intellectual property claims. The latter become especially important in documentaries and edited collections of complete documents and illustrations. "Fair use" does allow limited quotation from primary and secondary sources that are under copyright restriction.

David Davisson - 1/21/2005

Perhaps I've been looking in the wrong places, but it seems historians have been astoundingly indifferent to the increasing restrictions on intellectual property.

The 20th century will be hard enough to chronicle since electronic communications don't leave a paper trail, but the problem with Eyes on the Prize indicates another significant hurdle historians will have to overcome.

Corporations have little interest in scholarship, so what will future scholars do when important archival material is controlled by corporations (like Getty)?

Anybody know of any historians fighting intellectual property restrictions?

dave

(btw - Jayne Loader (not Yoder) also wrote a great potboiler called Between Pictures, which is a fun read. She also was a proto-blogger way back in 1996 http://www.publicshelter.com/wench/index.html)

Greg Robinson - 1/19/2005

The roughly hour and a half I saw (out of 4 hours total) was pretty entertaining although that obviously does not mean it was good or accurate history. I think Burns is good at what he does and that is projecting a popular history or a history of a subject as the people would like to remember it. Of all the "expert" commentators he had appear in this film, there was a couple "writers" a "biographer" (although it does not indicate he was a biographer of Jack Jones') James Earl Jones, and a couple of former boxers or boxing managers. I'm pretty sure none of them was alive to witness the events or experience the zeitgeist of the period so I'm not sure why they were called on to be in the film (especially James Earl Jones).

With that said, the subject matter was, as you stated Derek, wonderfully fascinating and I think Burns did a fair job of presenting the major issues of the story (framing it in political, social and racial contexts.

Derek Charles Catsam - 1/19/2005

Alas I was unable to see the jack Johnson documentary, though the natue of documentaries is that there is n9ot much cash to be wrung out of them, so the DVD is probably available almost simultaneously.
Jack Johnson's life is so fascinating and is a great study, though, so even if the documentary is not great (and I have no real reason to have an opinion one way or the other yet) the subject matter is wonderful and will probably be useful in classes.
dc

Greg Robinson - 1/19/2005

Our department has a copy and it is one of the most popular films we use throughout the course of the year. I like it for the original footage. There is nothing like showing those images to high school juniors to make them understand the violence and viciousness of white supremacists and police during the civil rights era. There's no substitute for the real thing.

Good post Derek; it is good to know what is happening with the film. I hope they are succesful with figuring out the footage rights. It is too important of a video to let disappear.

Any opinions on the newest Burns documentary on Jack Johnson?

Steven Heise - 1/19/2005

As someone who's been filling one of the chairs in Prof. Catsam's class while he shows these films, I have to agree, the chronological approach works very well in the 'Eyes on the Prize' series.

Steve

Stephen Tootle - 1/19/2005

I like the structure. I used the film a few years ago when I taught the 1960s course. Linear works for me.