Eyes on the Prize III: We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest
EYES ON THE PRIZE tells the definitive story of the civil rights era from the point of view of the ordinary men and women whose extraordinary actions launched a movement that changed the fabric of American life, and embodied a struggle whose reverberations continue to be felt today. Narrated by political leader and civil rights activist Julian Bond (1940-2015).
- Metascore88
- 2025-2025
- 1 season
- PBS
- Documentary
- TV-14
EYES ON THE PRIZE tells the definitive story of the civil rights era from the point of view of the ordinary men and women whose extraordinary actions launched a movement that changed the fabric of American life, and embodied a struggle whose reverberations continue to be felt today. Narrated by political leader and civil rights activist Julian Bond (1940-2015).
Season 1 Episode Guide
6 Episodes 2025
Episode 1
Awakenings: 1954-1956
Wed, Jan 21, 1987 57 mins
The acclaimed documentary series opens with the earliest origins of The Civil Right Movement. As the United States emerges from World War II, many black men who had been relegated to second class citizenry at home, return home from overseas where they were trained as officers and other positions of authority. Returning home, they determined to put that authority into their lives on the home front despite resistance from white Americans. The lynch-pin of The Civil Rights Movement is formed form two specific events. First, is the murder of 14 year-old Emmett Till in 1955, a black Chicago teenager who was murdered by two white Mississippians for supposedly breaking the south's strict social code by making a pass at a white woman. In the midst outrage over the men being acquitted of the murder by an all-white jury, Till's mother put her son's disfigured corpse on display in an open-casket funeral so that the Black Chicago citizens could see the horror of his murder first-hand - then put the photos in Jet magazine so that all American could glimpse the terrible reality of lynching. The second event took place four months later as Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery city bus to a white passenger and was arrested. Parks was arrested and her protest became the touchstone for the year-long Birmingham bus boycotts in which blacks - led by a 26 year-old Martin Luther King Jr. - refused to ride the bus until the city agreed to desegregate the city buses. They won their demands after 11 months, but it would only be the beginning.
Episode 1
America, Don't Look Away (1977-1988)
Tue, Feb 25, 2025 56 mins
Chronicles community activists in New York's South Bronx and Philadelphia fighting for fair housing and healthcare at the tail end of the Carter administration and through the rise of Reaganomics and the AIDS crisis.
Episode 2
Fighting Back: 1957-1962
Wed, Jan 28, 1987 57 mins
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown Vs the Board of Education decision, the civil rights movement presses the issue of desegregation in schools. From Little Rock High School and Eisenhower's utilization of the 101st Airborne to Ole Miss and Kennedy's lobbying efforts.
Episode 2
Trapped (1989-1995)
Tue, Feb 25, 2025 58 mins
Documents the criminal justice system profiling public defenders in Washington D.C. and local organizers in South Central Los Angeles who sound the alarm about institutional structures and policies that disproportionately affect the Black community.
Episode 3
Ain't Scared of Your Jails: 1960-1961
Wed, Feb 4, 1987 57 mins
The movement toward equality continues as oppressed African-Americans and sympathetic whites now having broken down segregation on both city buses and in public schools now turn their attention toward lunch counters. Students, schooled in non-violence, stage sit-ins at segregated lunch counters not only face violent mobs but have to engineer a plan to work around police procedure in order to keep the protests going. Meanwhile, groups of young people engineer a plan to ride interstate buses into the deep south to educated poor blacks in their rights and to make sure that they are being treated fairly. The arrival of the Freedom Riders is met by violent mobs sanctioned by local officials and law enforcement. As the violence continues, President Kennedy himself at odds with local politicians who are dead-set on not protecting the riders who are being brutalized.
Episode 3
Million Man March (1995)
Tue, Feb 25, 2025 59 mins
Chronicles the controversy and community inspired by the 1995 Million Man March in Washington, D.C. that came to be a transformative experience for many of the men who traveled in from around the nation to participate.
Episode 4
No Easy Walk: 1961-1963
Wed, Feb 11, 1987 57 mins
From PBS - This episode depicts major civil rights movement events in three American cities.
Episode 4
Spoil the Vine (1982-2011)
Tue, Feb 25, 2025 46 mins
Explores the growing environmental justice movement as local activists in West Virginia and Florida fight threats to their communities' health and survival.
Episode 5
Mississippi: Is This America?: 1962-1964
Wed, Feb 18, 1987 57 mins
1964 sees the advent of Freedom Summer. Volunteers from across the country travel to the south to register Negro voters. Despite the disappearance of three volunteers in Mississippi who are later found dead, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party is formed after blacks are banned from the regular state Democratic. The summer ends with both democratic parties struggling to be recognized at the national convention in Atlantic City.
Episode 5
We Don't See Color (1996-2013)
Tue, Feb 25, 2025 58 mins
Explores the complexities of affirmative action policies and how a changing demographic landscape affected school desegregation in new ways.
Episode 6
Bridge to Freedom: 1965
Wed, Feb 25, 1987 57 mins
From PBS - Ten years after the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, the civil rights leadership has become more sophisticated in its use of protest strategy.
Episode 6
What Comes After Hope? (2008-2015)
Tue, Feb 25, 2025 60 mins
Chronicles the years of America's first Black president, when, despite hope for significant societal change, police brutality soared and a new movement under the banner #BlackLivesMatter emerged.