When The Pot Overflowed

By Richard Zoglin

EYES ON THE PRIZE II; PBS, debuting Jan. 15, 9 p.m. on most stations

When we last left the civil rights movement, at the end of the 1987 PBS documentary series Eyes on the Prize, it had just survived a violent clash with state troopers outside Selma, Ala. The confrontation climaxed a remarkable decade of civil rights activity that followed the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation. Eyes on the Prize II, an eight-week continuation of that story, plunges us into a much different world. Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael and other firebrands have emerged to challenge the movement's old guard and question its tactics. If Eyes on the Prize recounted the inspiring opening act of the civil rights struggle, the follow-up series presents a more complex and disturbing Act II.

The cast of characters is larger, the moral positions less clear-cut, the progress not always forward. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his followers move their desegregation campaign to Northern cities like Chicago, but with mixed success. Black Panther leaders like Huey Newton and Bobby Seale sound as threatening as the white racists they oppose. Riots break out in Watts, Detroit, and Attica prison. Meanwhile, the nation undergoes a virtual revolution of race consciousness. Negroes are transformed into blacks, Afro hairstyles become a political statement, and the rise of a sassy young heavyweight named Cassius Clay has reverberations far beyond the boxing ring.

Though Eyes on the Prize was one of the most acclaimed series in PBS history, producer Henry Hampton had difficulty lining up financial support for a sequel. Several corporations reportedly were uneasy about underwriting a series that would deal with more controversial material. Actually, Eyes II steers its way through the turbulent era with admirable calm and impartiality. The unfailingly judicious narration (spoken by Julian Bond) at times seems restrained to the point of timidity.

Still, Eyes II is about as good as TV documentaries get. The old news footage, of course, is irresistible: scenes of marchers in Cicero, Ill., or crowds chanting "Free Huey!" recall the era as vividly as an LP of the Supremes' greatest hits. But the filmmakers have made unexpected finds as well, like rare glimpses of King's aides debating strategy before the 1968 Poor People's March on Washington. (King interrupted these planning sessions to travel to Memphis, where garbage men were on strike and where he would be assassinated.)

But Eyes II stands out also for the intelligent, graceful way all this material has been assembled. Each episode has an organizing theme (the movement goes north; the emergence of black pride) and a dramatic arc that builds toward climactic episodes marking key milestones. What makes the series most satisfying, however, are the interviews with onetime partisans who look back with surprising insight and clearheadedness. It's the sight of a graying Carmichael smiling as he recalls a phone conversation with King just before King came out publicly against the Viet Nam War. Or Ron Scott, whose apartment was raided by National Guardsmen during the Detroit riots, explaining, "Inside of most black people there was a time bomb . . . a pot that was about to overflow." If the historian's job is to bring some sort of order and sense to events that once seemed chaotic and frightening, then Eyes II deserves top prize.