Eyes on the Prize: America at the Racial Crossroads S02E01 – The Time Has Come (1964–1966)
Examines a lead member of the Nation of Islam - Malcolm X. It also chronicles the political organizing work of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) in Alabama and the shooting of James Meredith during the March Against Fear.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 This is a special presentation of American Experience.
00:07 Major funding for American Experience is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
00:16 National corporate funding is provided by Liberty Mutual and the Scotts Company.
00:21 American Experience is also made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
00:27 and by public television viewers.
00:32 Funding for the re-release of Eyes on the Prize,
00:35 made possible by the Ford Foundation and the Gilder Foundation.
00:47 What Dr. King gave us, what Stokely Carmichael gave us, what Malcolm X gave us,
00:52 what everybody gave us, whether you agreed with them or not,
00:55 the energy of that time and the goals that we were all aspiring to, I think,
00:59 is what it was all about at its best.
01:03 At its worst, it was when we did nothing.
01:06 Black people are dissatisfied.
01:08 They're dissatisfied not only with the white man,
01:10 but they're dissatisfied with these Negroes who have been sitting around here posing as leaders
01:13 and spokesmen for black people and actually making the problem worse instead of making the problem better.
01:18 [singing]
01:29 I'm tired of marching.
01:32 Tired of marching for something that should have been mine at birth.
01:36 [chanting]
01:46 Many days I would come home and I would think about all the liberals that got on the buses
01:54 and went south for sit-ins and boycotts in the south.
02:01 I really would come home and wonder, you know, where were they now?
02:06 [singing]
02:15 By the mid-1960s, the Civil Rights Movement had changed the laws that divided us by race.
02:21 But the struggle for unity was far from done.
02:25 Just because I'm white doesn't mean that the 14th Amendment doesn't reply to me either.
02:32 I am white and I want my rights.
02:36 We look at Miss America, we see white.
02:38 We look at Miss World, we see white.
02:40 We look at Miss Universe, we see white.
02:42 Even Tarzan, the king of the jungle in back Africa, he's white.
02:46 [singing]
02:56 Black Panthers preach every day, "Hate, kill white, kill the police, kill the pigs.
03:06 Hate, hate, hate." That's all you hear from them.
03:09 We don't hate nobody because of their color. We hate oppression.
03:13 We hate murder of black people in our communities.
03:17 We hate the gross unemployment that exists in our communities.
03:20 We hate black men being taken off into the military service.
03:24 [singing]
03:28 Sergeant, you've just recently returned from Vietnam.
03:31 Would you tell us how it feels to have to come from one zone of combat in a foreign land to one in your own land?
03:37 It's not a good feeling, not one I'm kind of proud of.
03:41 We stand on the eve of a black revolution, brothers.
03:45 Masses of our people are in the streets.
03:47 The rebellions that we see are merely dress rehearsals for the revolution that's to come.
03:53 Are you going to live outside of the American culture?
03:57 Or are you going to live within it?
04:00 As long as you stay in America, you've got to conform.
04:04 What else can you do?
04:06 We won't go back! We won't go back!
04:09 This television series chronicles a period of history when our nation stood at a racial crossroads.
04:15 A time when Americans struggled to define what was truly meant by liberty and justice for all.
04:22 It was a time for anger and fear.
04:32 A time when a gain for blacks was sometimes seen as a loss for whites.
04:36 Are the people of Cleveland willing to vote for a candidate for mayor who has the best qualifications,
04:43 but whose skin does happen to be black?
04:46 We pick our lipsticks by color, sometimes our dresses, but we don't vote that way.
04:51 We study the candidates.
04:53 I believe that.
04:54 It was also a time for triumph.
04:57 A time when victory blurred the color line.
05:00 A time when once again America struggled to be America for all of its citizens.
05:05 When we come together, what time is it?
05:08 When we respect each other, what time is it?
05:12 When we get our self-confidence, what time is it?
05:15 It's time! It's time!
05:18 It's nation time. It's nation time. It's nation time.
05:22 You could hear reverberating all those prior struggles from the '40s and the '30s and the '50s and the '60s.
05:28 I mean, it came to be fulfilled in that moment of crying that it's nation time.
05:33 Now.
05:34 I know the one thing we did right was the day we started to fight.
05:41 Keep your eyes on the prize. Hold on. Hold on.
05:48 Keep your eyes on the prize. Hold on.
05:55 Less than 2% of the Negro people in Harlem have taken an active part in the civil rights struggle.
06:02 We observe that there have been other groups out on the streets.
06:05 The nationalists have been out on the streets. The Muslims have been out on the streets.
06:08 But the NAACP up to this point has not been out there where the people are at.
06:13 All over Maryland, there's not one black citizen in the United States.
06:19 I just find Dr. Bunsh of Martin Luther King to tell me that there's citizens of this no good country.
06:28 Because integration will never happen.
06:31 You never, as long as you live, integrate into the white man's system.
06:39 In the early 1960s, on inner city street corners in the north, many groups competed for the hearts and minds of black America.
06:52 All praise is due to Allah. Everybody in Harlem is a Muslim.
06:57 One of the groups attracting the largest crowds was the Nation of Islam.
07:01 We too have been taught by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad that we were stripped of everything we had.
07:07 And been cast into the fiery furnace.
07:10 A land where they've been making it hot as hell for us for 400 years.
07:15 The Nation of Islam was a religious organization.
07:18 Its approach to teaching black pride and self-reliance often provoked controversy.
07:24 In major cities across the country, the nation built temples for prayer.
07:29 Established businesses to encourage economic independence in black communities.
07:35 And created schools to educate its children.
07:38 Members of the Nation of Islam were sometimes referred to as black Muslims.
07:43 Their god was Allah, and his messenger was Elijah Muhammad.
07:48 The so-called American Negro have to be completely re-educated.
07:56 He have to be completely made over again.
08:02 And the condition that he is now in, he's not fit for self.
08:09 And Islam gives him that qualification.
08:13 That he can feel proud and does not feel ashamed to be called a black man or a member of the black nation.
08:29 Elijah Muhammad successfully rehabilitated many convicts and drug addicts.
08:34 Teaching discipline and self-respect.
08:38 I quit taking drugs in 1958 after I heard the program of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
08:44 This is the only thing that ever gave me the inspiration or the strength not to use narcotics.
08:52 And he opened the door for me to show me that some of the good things of this earth could be mine.
08:57 With just a little effort and following him.
09:01 The Honorable Elijah Muhammad doesn't condemn the victim.
09:05 He goes to work on the victim.
09:08 One of the converts was Malcolm X who would soon transform the Nation of Islam.
09:13 He was born Malcolm Little.
09:15 His father was an organizer for black nationalist Marcus Garvey.
09:19 After the father's violent death, which many believed to be a lynching,
09:23 and the subsequent breakup of his family, the young Malcolm drifted into a life of drugs and crime.
09:29 In 1946, he was convicted of burglary and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
09:34 Where he was introduced to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad.
09:38 After his release, he became a Muslim minister.
09:42 And through street corner rallies, brought many new members into the Nation of Islam.
09:47 The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that it is time for you and me to stand up for ourselves.
09:54 It is time for you and me to see for ourselves.
09:58 It is time for you and me to hear for ourselves.
10:01 And it is time for you and me to fight for ourselves.
10:05 We don't need anybody today speaking for us, seeing for us, or fighting for us.
10:11 We'll fight our own battles with the help of our God.
10:14 So the first time I actually saw him was in the mosque in Harlem one Sunday afternoon as he preached to one of his humans.
10:21 And he described how we, as black folks, smelled.
10:24 He described how we looked. He described how we felt.
10:27 And then he described what caused us to feel that way.
10:30 You know, the chains of slavery are still in your minds and in your heads.
10:34 And you look at the white man and you love him. That's what you do.
10:38 You hate the fact that he let you go from slavery. You want to go back there.
10:43 But now, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is here now.
10:47 And we're going to change all that.
10:49 The righteous black man is on the scene.
10:51 And we're not going to be satisfied with you and your shucking and jiving.
10:56 The time has come.
10:58 In 1959, the media discovered the Nation of Islam.
11:08 While city officials, state agencies, white liberals, and sober-minded Negroes stand idly by,
11:15 a group of Negro dissenters is taking to street corner stepladders, church pulpits, sports arenas, and ballroom platforms across the United States
11:24 to preach a gospel of hate that would set off a federal investigation if it were preached by Southern whites.
11:30 Lou Lomax, a reporter I'd never heard of, came to my office, told me about something called the black Muslims.
11:36 I'd never heard of them.
11:38 Would we be interested in doing a broadcast, a documentary about them?
11:43 I suggested that, yeah, we might. Let's learn more about them.
11:48 One of the conditions of our doing the broadcast, he said, was they will not talk to a white reporter.
11:54 This is the first time I think my color's ever been in my favor rather than against me,
11:58 but on the whole, I would say that this assignment was a little rough.
12:04 Assigned to white camera crew, Lomax filmed this rally in Washington, D.C.
12:09 The program included a performance of a play by Louis X called "The Trial," in which whites are tried for their offenses against blacks.
12:19 I charge the white man, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, with being the greatest murderer on earth.
12:27 I charge the white man with being the greatest liar on earth.
12:31 I charge the white man with being the greatest troublemaker on earth.
12:35 So therefore, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask you, bring back a verdict of guilty as charged.
12:46 When Lou Lomax came back with a film of the rally, the black Muslim rally, I was simply stunned.
12:55 I mean, here was this auditorium overflowing, thousands of people.
13:00 About an organization I knew nothing about.
13:03 I found it difficult to credit when I saw it.
13:07 Have you ever been accused, sir, of preaching hate?
13:10 Yes.
13:11 Do you think you are preaching hate?
13:12 No.
13:13 What are you preaching, sir?
13:14 Truth.
13:15 They call Mr. Muhammad a hate teacher because he makes your hate dope and alcohol.
13:25 They call Mr. Muhammad a black supremacist because he teaches you and me not only that we're as good as the white man, but better than the white man.
13:35 Yes, better than the white man.
13:40 You are better than the white man.
13:42 And that's not saying anything.
13:44 That's not saying anything.
13:46 You know well just to be equal with him.
13:48 Who is he to be equal with?
13:50 You look at his skin.
13:52 You can't compare your skin with his skin.
13:55 Why, your skin look like gold beside his skin.
13:59 You find that old pale thing laying out in the sun trying to get to look like you.
14:14 That old pale thing.
14:17 In 1963, Malcolm X became national spokesman for the Nation of Islam.
14:22 You find him losing man pain trying to look like you.
14:27 That old pale thing.
14:31 I was standing on the island there looking at him and my friend said, "I'm going back to the office. We're going back."
14:39 And I said, "I'm going to stay because I like the rain."
14:41 It was this kind of quiet drizzle that was happening there.
14:45 I hope you're not getting too wet.
14:47 And I looked up and looked around determined not to look at him.
14:53 Determined not to listen.
14:54 But he started to talk and I found myself more and more listening to him.
14:58 And I began to nod my head and say, "Yeah, that's right. That makes sense."
15:02 You don't have any dope for airplanes bringing drugs into this country.
15:06 The white man brings it in.
15:08 The white man brings it to Harlem.
15:10 The white man makes you a drug addict.
15:13 The white man then puts you in jail when he catches you abusing drugs.
15:17 We're trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty, of ignorance, of apathy, of disease, and of death.
15:31 And they have these old Uncle Tom Negro leaders coming to Harlem telling you and me that times are getting better.
15:40 Times will never get better until you make them better.
15:43 When he came off the stage, I jumped off the island, walked up to him.
15:51 And of course when I got to him, the bodyguards moved in front and he just pushed them away.
15:58 And I went in front of him and extended my hand and said, "I liked some of what you said.
16:04 I didn't agree with all that you said, but I liked some of what you said."
16:09 And he looked at me, held my hand in a very gentle fashion and says, "One day you will, sister."
16:16 As his reputation grew, Malcolm X began to write a book with Alex Haley.
16:20 When I began to interview Malcolm for the book that would later be called The Autobiography of Malcolm X,
16:27 he would talk about the greater glories of Mr. Elijah Muhammad, his leader, and about the Nation of Islam.
16:34 And there was nothing else he would talk about.
16:37 And finally I began, very delicately as I could, to say to him, "Mr. Malcolm, this book is to be about you.
16:43 So I know about them. You've told me. I've written with you about them.
16:48 But we need now to go into your life."
16:51 And he would always get first testy about it, and then he got distinctly annoyed about it, and finally he would get angry.
16:59 I said, "Mr. Malcolm, could you tell me something about your mother?"
17:03 And I will never, ever forget how he stopped, almost as if he was suspended like a marionette.
17:10 And he said, "I remember the kind of dresses she used to wear.
17:16 They were old and faded and gray."
17:19 And then he walked some more.
17:22 And he said, "I remember how she was always bent over the stove, trying to stretch what little we had."
17:31 And that was the beginning, that night, of his walking.
17:35 He walked that floor until just about daybreak.
17:38 Largely ignoring Elijah Muhammad, the media focused on Malcolm X, contrasting him with Martin Luther King Jr.
17:46 And it is a message which says that I am convinced that the most potent weapon available to oppress people
17:55 as they struggle for freedom and justice is the weapon of nonviolence.
18:03 We're nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.
18:11 But we are not nonviolent with anyone who is violent with us.
18:17 Malcolm X represented a different brand of leadership.
18:23 Many of us that grew up in the South had been deeply influenced by the church,
18:32 by the preaching of blind ministers, but also by the message, the philosophy, the teaching of Martin Luther King Jr.,
18:40 the philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence.
18:43 We saw Malcolm as someone, in a sense, from the outside, coming from the North,
18:49 to tell us that it was a different way, a different approach.
18:53 And I think many of us in the South had some reservations about it.
18:57 Martin and the regular civil rights leaders were presenting to America our best face,
19:04 our nonviolent face, our desire to be included into American society.
19:10 And we wanted to show the world that we had no evil intentions against anybody.
19:14 We just wanted to be included.
19:16 But they also understood that America, in spite of our reassurances,
19:20 would be frightened and hesitant to open the doors to black folks.
19:24 So Malcolm, as the outsider, as the man they thought represented the possibilities of violence,
19:32 was the counter that they could use.
19:35 They would say to the powers that be, "Look, here's Martin Luther King and all these guys. We are nonviolent.
19:40 Now, outside the door, if you don't deal with us, is the other brother.
19:44 And he ain't like us."
19:46 One white man named Lincoln supposedly fought the Civil War to solve the race problem,
19:51 and the problem is still here.
19:53 And then another white man named Kennedy came along running for president
19:56 and told Negroes what all he was going to do for them if they voted for him,
19:59 and they voted for him 80 percent.
20:01 He's been in office now for three years, and the problem is still here.
20:04 When police dogs were biting black women and black children and black babies in Birmingham, Alabama,
20:08 that Kennedy talked about what he couldn't do because no federal law had been violated.
20:13 And as soon as the Negroes exploded and began to protect themselves
20:16 and got the best of the crackers in Birmingham, then Kennedy sent for the troops.
20:20 And there was no--he didn't have any new law.
20:24 When he sent for the troops when the Negroes erupted,
20:26 then he had at the time when whites were erupting.
20:29 In November 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
20:37 In the midst of national mourning, Elijah Muhammad suspended Malcolm X
20:42 for his comments on the president's death.
20:45 This came about as a result of statements in the press
20:52 indicating or trying to imply that he had rejoiced over the assassination of President John Kennedy.
20:58 A statement that Brother Malcolm had said at the time was that it was a case of the chickens coming home to roost.
21:03 He had been saying all along that the violence,
21:05 that whole violent atmosphere that had been created as a result of the movement,
21:09 and by the government not doing anything about this--
21:12 in this case, Kennedy was the president at the time--
21:15 they had created a whole atmosphere of violence,
21:17 and finally this violence had reached the White House.
21:20 The relationship between Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam rapidly deteriorated.
21:25 During the 90 days that I've been silent, I have come to the conclusion
21:29 that I can best help spread the solution and the diagnosis
21:36 that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad gives of the so-called Negro problem in this country
21:40 by continuing to remain out of the Nation of Islam
21:44 and working on my own without restriction in the way that I think I best know how.
21:49 He felt that he was now a big man before the public,
21:54 and this seemed to have been his desire.
21:57 He wanted to be seen and heard. He wanted to exalt himself above his teacher.
22:03 The Nation of Islam, as it is guided spiritually by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,
22:08 doesn't involve itself in politics in any form because of its failure
22:13 to become actively involved in the struggle of the Negroes overall.
22:18 Many persons in the past have drifted away from it
22:21 and are now becoming involved with us in an active effort
22:26 to work with other groups toward solving the political, social, and economic evils
22:30 that afflict our people.
22:34 Malcolm X now advanced his own program for black Americans.
22:38 As-salamu alaykum.
22:41 He formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity
22:44 dedicated to the philosophy of black nationalism.
22:47 Which means that the black man should control the politics of his own community
22:51 and control the politicians who are in his own community.
22:54 My personal economic philosophy is also black nationalism,
22:57 which means that the black man should have a hand in controlling the economy
23:01 of the so-called Negro community.
23:03 He should be developing the type of knowledge that will enable him to own
23:06 and operate the businesses and thereby be able to create employment
23:10 for his own people, for his own kind.
23:13 Malcolm X made two trips to Africa,
23:16 including a pilgrimage to Mecca to become an Orthodox Muslim.
23:19 His meetings with African leaders to seek their support
23:22 attracted the attention of the U.S. Justice and State Departments.
23:26 My purpose here is to remind the African heads of state
23:30 that there are 22 million of us in America who are also of African descent.
23:35 And to remind them also that we are the victims of America's colonialism
23:39 or American imperialism, and that our problem is not an American problem,
23:44 it's a human problem.
23:46 It's not a Negro problem, it's a problem of humanity.
23:49 It's not a problem of civil rights, but a problem of human rights.
23:52 What he ultimately was aiming for at a foreign policy level
23:55 was to have the government, the U.S. government,
23:57 have to defend its inaction in terms of the racist attacks
24:01 that were going on at that time,
24:03 to defend its actions before the U.N. Commission on Human Rights
24:06 and take it before the world court.
24:08 Are you prepared to go into the United Nations at this point
24:11 and ask that charges be brought against the United States
24:14 for its treatment of American Negroes?
24:16 Oh, yes. Oh, yes, please.
24:18 I think you're right in my face.
24:20 The audience will have to be quiet.
24:24 Yes, as I pointed out when I was in-- during my traveling,
24:29 that nations look-- African nations and Asian nations
24:32 and Latin American nations look very hypocritical
24:36 when they stand up in the United Nations
24:38 condemning the racist practices of South Africa
24:42 and that which is practiced by Portugal and Angola
24:45 and saying nothing in the U.N. about the racist practices
24:49 that are-- that are manifest every day
24:52 against Negroes in this society.
24:54 Are you prepared to work with some of the leaders
24:56 of the other civil rights organizations?
24:58 Certainly. Certainly.
25:00 We will work with any groups, organizations, or leaders
25:03 in any way as long as it's genuinely designed to get results.
25:07 Malcolm X received many threats,
25:12 but an attempted poisoning in Africa
25:14 made him believe the danger went beyond the Nation of Islam.
25:18 On December 3, 1964,
25:21 he took part in this debate in Oxford, England.
25:24 And I live in a society whose social system
25:28 is based upon the castration of the black man,
25:31 whose political system is based on castration of the black man,
25:35 and whose economy is based upon the castration of the black man.
25:39 He came up with what they call a civil rights bill in 1964,
25:42 supposedly to solve our problem,
25:44 and after the bill was signed,
25:46 three civil rights workers were murdered in cold blood.
25:50 Civil rights bill down the drain.
25:53 No matter how many bills pass,
25:55 black people in that country where I'm from,
25:58 still, our lives are not worth two cents.
26:00 Well, any time you live in a society supposedly based upon law,
26:04 and it doesn't enforce its own law
26:06 because the color of a man's skin happens to be wrong,
26:09 then I say those people are justified
26:11 to resort to any means necessary
26:14 to bring about justice where the government can't give them justice.
26:17 [applause]
26:20 Malcolm X's influence was strong among young people,
26:27 especially for some members
26:29 of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
26:32 So many people in Snake who didn't even know who Malcolm was
26:35 began to sit up and take notice.
26:37 So here in Snake, it became first forthright
26:40 that Malcolm X is having an effect
26:42 so people began to look closer.
26:44 Of course, the closer they looked to Malcolm X,
26:46 the quicker they got hooked on Malcolm X.
26:49 Early in 1965, Snake and Dr. Martin Luther King
26:53 joined forces for a voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama.
26:57 When Snake invited Malcolm X to speak in Selma,
27:02 he reaffirmed his willingness to support other civil rights leaders.
27:08 And I think that the people in this part of the world
27:12 would do well to listen to Dr. Martin Luther King
27:17 and give him what he's asking for
27:19 and give it to him fast
27:21 before some other factions come along
27:24 and try to do it another way.
27:26 What he's asking for is right.
27:28 That's the ballot.
27:30 And if he can't get it the way he's trying to get it,
27:32 then it's going to be got one way or the other.
27:35 On February 14, 1965,
27:38 Malcolm X's home was bombed as he and his family slept inside.
27:42 Had you had any threats of anything like this?
27:45 Had any threats?
27:47 That's all I get is threats.
27:49 I get not less than six or seven threatening phone calls every day.
27:56 And the phone rang and I picked it up.
27:59 It was a morning, a Saturday morning as I recall.
28:03 And this voice came on and started talking.
28:07 And I'm wondering, "Who is it?"
28:09 I didn't understand. I didn't recognize the voice.
28:12 And finally, something he said made me realize
28:15 with a great shock, my shock, that was Malcolm X.
28:19 And for the first time in our whole acquaintance of years,
28:23 I really didn't perceive who he was.
28:27 The thing was, he was under such pressure
28:31 that it was as if it had constricted his vocal cords.
28:35 He just felt, I guess, as near desperate as I ever saw him
28:40 because, again, here's the image
28:44 of the fearsome, indomitable Malcolm X.
28:50 But bottom line was, he was a father and he was a husband,
28:54 and his wife and his daughters were imperiled.
28:57 And what could he do about it?
28:59 My house was bombed.
29:01 It was bombed by the black Muslim movement
29:04 upon the orders of Elijah Muhammad.
29:06 But within the week, Malcolm X expressed doubt
29:09 that the Muslims were responsible.
29:11 He planned to speak again the following Sunday
29:13 at the Audubon Ballroom.
29:15 I was going to the Audubon that day,
29:18 had been out the night before reading,
29:21 had gotten lazy and had said simply,
29:25 "Ah, I'll go next week."
29:27 And so proceeded to go into the kitchen,
29:29 put some coffee on, turn on the radio.
29:32 In my little apartment there,
29:34 I had a little black and white kitchen table
29:37 with these little black chairs,
29:40 and I had this little black radio on that table,
29:42 and I clicked the radio on.
29:44 As I stood there thinking about what had happened
29:48 the night before, turned towards the stove
29:52 to pick up my coffee,
29:54 and the flash came through on this station
29:59 and said, "Malcolm had been assassinated."
30:02 Malcolm X was killed by 16 gunshots
30:10 fired at close range.
30:12 He was 39 years old.
30:14 And my children were crying, you know,
30:16 "What's going on? What's going on?
30:18 Are they going to shoot us?"
30:20 And I just knew they had shot him.
30:24 And that night we went into the Harlem community
30:27 to walk and mingle with the people.
30:29 There was a kind of sense of loss,
30:32 and as we passed people, some who were even strangers,
30:35 we would stop and greet each other
30:38 and say what this man had meant to us.
30:42 He was a master teacher,
30:44 and there is no greater loss to a community
30:47 than the loss of a master teacher.
30:50 [music]
30:52 During the next three days,
31:04 20,000 people endured sub-freezing temperatures
31:07 to say goodbye to Malcolm X.
31:10 [music]
31:39 When the funeral was over
31:41 and Malcolm was stripped of his western clothes
31:45 and then the Muslims came and dressed him
31:48 for a proper Muslim burial,
31:51 they had a service.
31:54 [music]
31:58 [music]
32:25 We went out to Osley, the cemetery,
32:27 and when we got there, you know,
32:29 the professional grave diggers were standing there
32:31 with their shovels, but some of the black brothers said,
32:34 "No, we can't let you do that.
32:38 We dig this grave.
32:40 We cover this brother with dirt."
32:52 And it was a moving moment,
32:56 and I was proud at that moment to be black
33:00 and proud that my community and people,
33:04 no matter what had been said by the outside world,
33:08 said to the brother, "We loved and respected
33:12 and admired you."
33:14 And so we buried him,
33:19 and there it is.
33:22 [music]
33:25 Malcolm X had a far-reaching effect
33:33 on the civil rights movement.
33:35 In the South, there had been a long tradition
33:37 of self-reliance.
33:39 Malcolm X's ideas now touched that tradition.
33:42 [music]
33:48 In 1965, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
33:52 launched new strategies to challenge white control
33:54 of Southern politics.
33:56 Our direction was clear, a heavy emphasis on nationalism.
34:00 Strong, as strong as Malcolm had it,
34:03 as strong as we could get it.
34:05 Carmichael and other SNCC members began a voter drive
34:10 in Lowndes County, Alabama,
34:12 known as Bloody Lowndes for its violence against blacks.
34:15 Although 80% of the population was black,
34:18 there were no black elected officials.
34:20 Economically dependent on white plantation owners,
34:23 many were afraid to join civil rights efforts,
34:26 and none had been allowed to register to vote
34:28 until early 1965.
34:31 Now in this country, it says majority rules.
34:34 We are 80% of the majority in this--
34:36 We are 80% in this county,
34:38 and we have the right to rule this county.
34:41 We have the right to rule this county,
34:43 and we're going to rule it.
34:45 I don't care how poor we are and how black we are,
34:47 we're going to govern this county.
34:49 Stokely Carmichael and Colton Cox and others
34:51 who got together and told us, according to the Alabama law,
34:54 if we didn't like what the Democratic Party was doing
34:56 in our county, or the Republican Party,
34:59 we could form our own political organization,
35:02 and it could become a political party.
35:04 [music]
35:06 George Wallace was then the head of the Alabama Democratic Party.
35:12 The Alabama Democratic Party was racist.
35:14 Its symbol at that time had a white rooster,
35:17 and it had the words of white supremacy.
35:19 That was the official emblem of the Democratic Party of Alabama.
35:23 So here it would be easy for us to tell our people,
35:25 "Hey, look, this party's not for us.
35:27 We need our own party."
35:29 The new political party was named
35:31 the Lowndes County Freedom Organization,
35:33 but it became better known by the symbol it chose--
35:36 a Black Panther.
35:38 When we chose that symbol, it was a Black Panther,
35:41 and many of the people in our county
35:43 started saying we were violent during that time.
35:46 Now you got a violent group in Lowndes County
35:48 who is turning out to start killing Black, white folks.
35:51 But it wasn't that.
35:53 It was just a symbol to our organization
35:55 that we was here to stay, and we were going to do
35:57 whatever needed to be done to survive.
35:59 Everybody was excited because they said,
36:01 "Well, they have the rooster,
36:03 which represents the Democratic Party,
36:06 the elephant, which represents the Republican Party.
36:10 Why can't we have a Black cat to represent us?"
36:13 Everybody knows how a cat look, and we were excited
36:16 because we knew that if a person couldn't read and write,
36:19 they sure knew the difference between a cat,
36:21 an elephant, and a rooster.
36:23 [music]
36:29 Snick went door to door and farm to farm,
36:32 explaining to first-time voters
36:34 the rules for taking part in the Lowndes County primary.
36:37 Now the law says that you can't vote in ours
36:40 and also vote in the Democratic primary,
36:42 which has to be held on the same day according to the law.
36:45 So what we'll have to do is vote on one and not the other.
36:48 So if you want to vote for our candidates,
36:50 for Sheriff, for Tax Assessor, Tax Collector,
36:52 Coroner, and the School Board, then you have to vote for us.
36:55 [music]
36:58 On May 3, 1966, Lowndes County Blacks
37:01 voted for the first time since the end of Reconstruction.
37:05 [music]
37:08 Some voted as Democrats in the Hainville Courthouse.
37:11 [music]
37:14 Several blocks away, the Lowndes County Freedom Organization
37:17 held its primary on the grounds of the First Baptist Church.
37:21 [music]
37:24 Voters for the Independent Party were introduced
37:26 to candidates for seven offices, including Sheriff,
37:29 before casting their ballots.
37:32 [music]
37:35 [music]
37:38 [music]
37:41 [music]
37:44 Even with the ever-present threat of violence,
37:47 900 Black voters showed up that day to vote for the Panther.
37:51 This was the first time that the Black people in this county
37:55 had came together to make choice of their own candidates
38:00 for public office.
38:02 It was important also because the numbers of people
38:05 that turned out to their election that day
38:07 and voted for their candidates and felt that they had done
38:10 something for themselves to start making changes,
38:13 the kind of changes they wanted to see happen in the system.
38:16 [music]
38:19 Eleven days later, Stokely Carmichael,
38:23 representing the new militancy within SNCC,
38:26 defeated John Lewis as national chairman.
38:29 If you took a clear look at John Lewis,
38:31 he looked more like a young Martin Luther King Jr.
38:34 than anything else.
38:35 It was almost like a coup.
38:38 People were saying that we need someone
38:40 who would stand up to Lyndon Johnson.
38:42 We need someone who would stand up to Martin Luther King Jr.
38:45 It was clear that he'd been alienated from the SNCC staff,
38:48 so the vote against him represented that,
38:50 but more importantly, it represented the clear insight
38:54 of the SNCC organizers that understood that the question
38:57 of morality upon which King's organization depended
39:01 to bring about changes in the community were not possible.
39:04 The SNCC people had seen raw terror,
39:06 and they understood properly that this raw terror
39:08 had nothing to do with morality, but had to do clearly with power.
39:12 It had been almost a year since Congress passed
39:15 the Voting Rights Act, but white resistance remained strong.
39:19 In Mississippi alone, more than 300,000 blacks
39:22 were not registered to vote.
39:24 James Meredith, the first black person to enroll
39:27 at the University of Mississippi,
39:29 was determined to change all that.
39:31 On June 5, 1966, Meredith left Memphis, Tennessee,
39:36 prepared to walk 220 miles to Jackson, Mississippi.
39:40 He called it a "march against fear."
39:43 To point up and challenge, if necessary,
39:46 this all-pervasive and overriding fear
39:50 that's so much a part of the day-to-day life of the Negro
39:53 in this country, and especially in Mississippi.
39:56 On the second day of his march, James Meredith was shot from ambush.
40:03 We, as you know, have been greatly concerned
40:11 about the shooting of James Meredith.
40:14 We have expressed that...
40:16 Leaders of major civil rights organizations
40:18 rushed to Memphis, Tennessee, where James Meredith was hospitalized.
40:22 They vowed to continue the march for him.
40:25 And something needs to be done to make it clear
40:28 that we are not going to be stopped,
40:30 we're not going to be intimidated.
40:33 From the start, there was conflict.
40:36 If we're going to be free, we will have to suffer for that freedom,
40:40 we will have to sacrifice for it.
40:42 I'm not going to beg the white man for anything that I deserve.
40:45 I'm going to take it!
40:51 We need power. We need power.
40:54 That's what we need. We need power just like anybody else.
40:58 I think it was more of a youth movement
41:01 in all of the organizations asserting themselves
41:05 far more than it was competition among leaders themselves.
41:10 It was a clash of ideas, no question about a clash of ideas.
41:14 The leaders began marching at the point where Meredith had been shot.
41:20 Mississippi state troopers forcefully prevented them
41:23 from marching on the road's surface.
41:25 Carmichael, angered by this rough handling,
41:28 stepped forward to retaliate, but Dr. King restrained him.
41:31 We've got to realize the white folk in the state of Mississippi
41:35 ain't nothing but a bunch of racists,
41:37 and the only people who can stop them are the black folk in Mississippi.
41:41 Now we've got to make this march our march.
41:46 This has got to be the march for the black people in Mississippi.
41:50 And the only way we can make that our march
41:52 is that we've got to go into every little place
41:55 and get every black man and black woman, black boy and black girl out
41:58 who's not afraid, and let's march, and let's make this our Mississippi.
42:03 It's got to be our Mississippi.
42:05 In sweltering heat, the marchers walked along Highway 51,
42:14 stopping in towns along the way to register new voters.
42:18 How long have you waited to register?
42:24 How many years?
42:26 Long time.
42:28 How many years?
42:30 How old are you?
42:31 I'm a hundred and sixty-nine months.
42:34 Never fooled with the things that were getting up,
42:38 and I don't mess with them now.
42:40 How do you feel, sir?
42:41 Me? I feel good.
42:43 All right.
42:44 [chanting]
42:57 I said freedom got a shotgun, oh yeah!
43:02 Ain't no freedom gonna shoot it, oh yeah!
43:05 Ain't no segregated bigot, oh yeah!
43:08 I said freedom got a shotgun, oh yeah!
43:11 [chanting]
43:18 [chanting]
43:24 I need somebody to help me say it one time.
43:27 Twenty Mississippi State Troopers provided some protection,
43:31 but halfway through the march, that number was reduced to four.
43:34 Governor Paul Johnson announced he wasn't, quote,
43:37 "going to wet-nurse a bunch of showmen."
43:39 [chanting]
43:46 As James Meredith recovered from his wounds,
43:48 the threat of another attack against the marchers
43:51 was an ever-present concern.
43:53 They don't go home!
43:54 There was a new sense of anxiety that we were becoming involved
43:57 in something that might have consequences,
44:00 something real, it wasn't an academic exercise.
44:03 Unit one, ten-four.
44:05 As the marchers camped each night,
44:07 they were protected by an organization
44:09 known as the Deacons for Defense and Justice.
44:12 Are any of them armed?
44:14 Well, I would think so.
44:17 What do they carry?
44:19 Well, it depends, .38s, .45s, M2s.
44:24 Are they prepared or trained to use them?
44:26 Yes, they are.
44:28 I'm tired of violence.
44:31 I've seen too much of it.
44:34 I can't hate on the faces of too many sheriffs in the South.
44:37 [applause]
44:41 And I'm not going to let my oppressor
44:47 dictate to me what method I must use.
44:51 SNCC planned to issue a dramatic call
44:54 as the march approached Greenwood, Mississippi.
44:57 Willie Ricks was sent out as head, as the advance scout,
45:00 and sometimes he could have as many as 20 to 40,
45:03 and he grew bigger, even 20 or 40 people
45:05 in his direction to spread out.
45:07 And his task was to take them, spread them out to plantations,
45:10 speak to the sharecroppers,
45:12 tell them the march was coming through,
45:14 but to throw out black power
45:16 and to give little black power speeches to get the reaction.
45:19 I think about 3 nights before Greenwood,
45:21 because SNCC was deciding where's the best place for us to launch it.
45:24 About 3 nights before Greenwood,
45:26 I remember about 2 o'clock in the morning,
45:28 Ricks came back and he was giving a report,
45:30 and Cleve Sullors was sitting next to me, I remember.
45:33 And Ricks was saying, "We ought to drop it now.
45:35 The people are ready for it."
45:37 I said it the other day, "And they dropped their hose."
45:40 And I said to Cleve, "You sent the wrong man out
45:43 because we need a clear analysis here,
45:45 and this man is giving to exaggerations."
45:47 What do you want? Black power!
45:49 What do you want? Black power!
45:51 What do you want? Black power!
45:53 What do you want? Black power!
45:55 Ricks had everybody primed. He said, "Just get to your speech.
45:58 We're going against freedom now. We're going for black power.
46:01 Don't hit too much on freedom now, but hit the need for power."
46:04 So we built up on the need for power.
46:06 And just when I got there, before I got there,
46:08 Ricks was there saying, "Hit them now, hit them now."
46:10 I kept saying, "Give me time, give me time."
46:12 When we finally got it and we dropped it, black power,
46:14 of course they had been primed and they responded immediately.
46:17 But I myself, to be honest,
46:19 I didn't expect that enthusiastic response.
46:22 We want black power!
46:24 We want black power!
46:26 We want black power!
46:28 We want black power!
46:30 What do you want? Black power!
46:32 What do you want? Black power!
46:34 Everybody, what do you want? Black power!
46:37 We want black power! We want black power!
46:40 Black power! That's what we're going to get.
46:43 Until finally everyone together was thundering,
46:45 "Black power, black power."
46:48 And that was chilling, that was frightening.
46:50 It scared people because they did not understand
46:53 that they could not subtract violence from power.
46:58 They could only see power as a violent instrument accompanying it.
47:03 It was empty rhetoric. It was not a message.
47:06 And the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
47:10 had a rich history of being involved in programmatic efforts
47:15 and not just the use of slogan.
47:18 It was at that point, during that march,
47:23 that I made a decision to leave the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
47:27 The cause of black equality will be decided by black people.
47:30 The media saw the call for black power as a major shift in the civil rights movement.
47:34 There was a tendency, I thought, to overplay it.
47:37 There were a lot of new reporters,
47:39 reporters who were new to this beat,
47:41 who were coming in from a lot of papers around the country
47:44 as the march began to pick up momentum
47:46 and as this black power theme began to get some publicity.
47:49 The second reason was that the theme was never really clearly articulated,
47:55 or at least what it meant was never clearly defined.
47:58 And so it was open to very broad interpretations.
48:01 And there were some whites, for their own reasons,
48:03 who wanted to take this as a signal of real black hostility and enmity.
48:09 Hey, hey, what do you know? Hockey got to go.
48:12 Hey, hey, what do you know? Hockey got to go.
48:16 Hey, hey, what do you know? Hockey got to go.
48:20 And the strategy coming out of black power from SNCC
48:24 was that blacks should organize with blacks and whites should organize with whites.
48:29 SNCC took the position that if there was going to be a march in Mississippi,
48:33 it should be a march that's indigenous,
48:35 meaning that Mississippians should be involved
48:38 and not call out the liberal armies from the North
48:42 to come in and assist with that march.
48:44 So we moved on to work with whites on issues that we felt we should work with.
48:51 In the next year, that was not civil rights, that was Vietnam.
48:54 On the other hand, I want to make it clear that I...
48:58 As the march neared Canton, Mississippi,
49:00 reporters played up the differences between Martin Luther King and Stokely Carmichael.
49:04 Let me say first that this march is nonviolent.
49:08 It is a nonviolent expression of our determination to be free.
49:14 This is the principle of the march,
49:16 and certainly we intend to keep this march nonviolent.
49:20 Mr. Carmichael, are you as committed to the nonviolent approach as Dr. King is?
49:24 No, I'm not.
49:25 Why aren't you?
49:26 Well, I just don't see it as a way of life. I never have.
49:29 I also realize that no one in this country is asking the white community in the South
49:33 to be nonviolent, and that in a sense is giving them a free license
49:37 to go ahead and shoot us at will.
49:39 The marchers began to set up their tents for the night
49:45 on the grounds of an all-black school in Canton, Mississippi.
49:51 Permission to use the school grounds had been granted by the Black School Board,
49:55 but was later revoked by white city officials.
49:58 I think you are a pity of kids. If you continue doing so, you will be placed under arrest.
50:05 We don't want anybody to move. The time for running has come to an end.
50:10 You tell them white folk in Mississippi that all the scared niggers are dead.
50:17 You tell them they shout all the rabbits they're going to deal with cement.
50:22 Black power! Black power! Black power! Black power!
50:29 Mississippi State troopers who had once been assigned to protect the marchers
50:35 now took another stance.
50:37 I want to get this over because this is important.
50:40 We're going to stick together. If necessary, we are willing to fill up all of the jails
50:48 in the state of Mississippi.
50:51 And I don't believe they have enough jails to hold the people if they start arresting.
51:20 It was like a scene of hell with the smoke rising and people vomiting
51:25 and crawling around and choking and crying.
51:28 And then there was a kind of an eerie silence.
51:31 And the one thing you could hear over and over again was the thud, thud, thud sound.
51:36 And what it was was the Mississippi troopers kicking people on the ground
51:41 or hitting them with their rifle butts.
51:46 Nothing's going to happen. We're going to the church. We got to worry about it.
51:50 How were you hurt?
52:00 They hit me in the chest with a canister.
52:02 With a canister?
52:03 White power. That's what it was. White power.
52:06 Freedom! Freedom!
52:08 Black power! Freedom!
52:10 [chanting]
52:17 Despite the tear gas and beatings, the marchers remained non-violent.
52:21 But voices in the night told of the rage that many were feeling.
52:25 We need to overcome!
52:26 We need to get them fighting!
52:28 Whitey got to go!
52:30 Go!
52:31 Whitey got to go!
52:34 Whitey got to go!
52:39 [chanting]
52:41 [music]
52:57 Now if you feel that you can't go on
53:01 Because all of your hope is gone
53:05 And your life is filled with much confusion
53:09 Until happiness is just an illusion
53:13 And your world around is...
53:15 On June 26, the march entered Jackson, Mississippi.
53:19 Along the route, 4,000 new voters were added to Mississippi voting rolls
53:23 since Meredith first began his march against fear 22 days earlier in Memphis.
53:28 [chanting]
53:38 And I have watched my dreams turn into a nightmare
53:42 I still have a dream
53:44 I still have a dream
53:47 That one day right here in the state of Mississippi
53:52 Justice will become a reality for all of God's children
53:58 I still have a dream
54:00 [applause]
54:02 Go ahead, Doc.
54:03 We have to move to a position where we can feel strength and unity amongst each other
54:11 from loss to honor, where we won't ever be afraid.
54:14 And the last thing we have to do is to build a power base so strong in this country
54:20 that will bring them to their knees every time they mess with us.
54:24 [cheering]
54:28 This was the last great march of the Southern Civil Rights Movement.
54:32 The call for power would now be raised in communities across the nation,
54:36 challenging Americans to look at the realities of their democracy.
54:40 Black Americans were changing, and there was no turning back.
54:45 And let 1966 be the year that we decided that we would develop our own culture,
54:54 that we would be proud of being black people,
54:57 that we would no longer accept the use of the word "Negro,"
55:02 but we would become mature, and we would regard ourselves as black men,
55:07 black men in America.
55:10 [cheering]
55:13 [music]
55:16 [singing]
55:20 [singing]
55:24 [singing]
55:28 [singing]
55:32 [singing]
55:36 [singing]
55:39 [singing]
55:47 [singing]
55:55 [singing]
56:04 [singing]
56:07 [singing]
56:18 [singing]
56:31 [singing]
56:34 Major funding for American Experience is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
56:56 National corporate funding is provided by Liberty Mutual and The Scots Company.
57:02 American Experience is also made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
57:07 and by public television viewers.
57:10 Funding for the re-release of Eyes on the Prize,
57:15 made possible by the Ford Foundation and the Gilder Foundation.
57:20 [BLANK_AUDIO]