-ask everyone to please come to their seats as quickly as possible because we're already running a little late. And this is such a fantastic panel, I'd like you to hear as much of it, or all of it, as you can. [pause] Before we get started, I just wanna, I know this morning you met Rob Hollister, but I don't think you know how important he was to this whole conference. Rob was the one that looked after getting funding. And you know nothing, there's nothing that we can do without getting funding, and he did it in such a nice, quiet way. And 'cause we let him do it, we didn't ask him how we could help or anything.

And so, I just wanted to mention that because I think we don't understand how people work in order to get things done. Also, we did mention the, the people who are on the committee, and this committee started working last June. This whole idea started because the museum and Jack Mendelsohn's shop at Blackside and Tufts started to meet around how the museum and Tufts could develop a working relationship. And then Rob and I sat down and thought that one of the things you do when you're trying to develop a relationship is to do something, and we talked about this conference and it got started. And we had a wonderful committee and I'm just gonna ask the people who are on that committee if they'll just stand just for a minute so people can see who they were.

I don't see anybody standing.

Thank you, thank you very much. OK, now, there is at Blackside a most spectacular team of people working on Eyes on the Prize. And of course this morning we heard the leader of the team, and he was spectacular. So if you have a spectacular leader, it follows that you get a spectacular team. And the people that you see represented here are just a few of the people who work at Blackside. There's a large number of people, research people, editors, secretaries, writers. Who'd I leave out? All kinds of people who come together to produce this fantastic series...I know people say, Ruth, you use that word too much, but maybe somebody will give me another one, but it is, which has changed the face of history in this nation. And so, this afternoon we are having what we call a discussion with the producers. Let me introduce them to you. Judy Richardson is going to moderate the team this afternoon, and Judy worked on the first season of Eyes on the Prize as a researcher and series content advisor. Judy was an on-the-line civil rights worker in the sixties. She was a member of SNCC. And what I love about Judy is that she brings her experience to the work in a most sensitive and a most passionate way, and she's been a most valuable person in SNCC. I mean in, on the Eyes on the Prize. In SNCC, too.

She was also in, worked on the campaign of Julian Bond for the Georgia House of Representatives. And she is currently on leave from her position as Director of Information for the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice. Judy, would you just raise your hand so people see who you are?

I'm gonna introduce the next group of people as a team because they happened to work together on the same, on the same shows. And by the way, Judy Richardson, if you wanna know which show she was involved in, she's an associate producer, she was involved with the Muhammad Ali show. OK. Jackie Shearer - would you raise your hand, Jackie? - and Paul Stekler are co-producers. [reads] And Jackie is an independent and experienced filmmaker. Shearer produced and directed A Minor alter, Altercation. She is now developing Addie and the Pink Carnations, a feature film drawing on the history of Black women, domestic workers in the 1930s. And Jackie Shearer is a graduate of Brandeis University. And Paul Stekler is an independent filmmaker, and he has produced two documentaries, Hands that Picked Cotton and Among Brothers. Both were broadcast nationally on PBS and have won numerous awards. A Boston resident, Stekler holds a PhD in Government from Harvard University. And sitting with them is Lillian Benson, who is the editor with this team. And she's a very fine and experienced editor. I've heard Henry remark on her skills so many times. Now this group has worked on, worked on the Martin Luther King show that you saw this morning. They have also worked on the affirmative action show that you'll see in small clips this afternoon. And they worked also on the Boston story, which you have not seen. So it's my pleasure to introduce you to Judy Richardson. I'll turn it over to you.

Can you, you can hear me all right? All right. First of all, we as the producers, and, and that's the whole production team really appreciate this opportunity to get together with you. It's a very unique opportunity for people in production on films. Usually, you never get to see your audience. And certainly you never get to see those who would use it the classroom. So, we very much appreciate this chance to do this with you. Some of us, particularly in the making of Eyes II, talk about sometimes jokingly that the making of it is a movie in itself. And we have had a lot of discussions, arguments, debates about the content matter of the series. So when you see it, don't think that there was, you know, some sudden, sudden flash of light and we all decided, oh, this is the way we're gonna go. Never happened. It was very much a, a sense of consensus. It was very much an, a bringing together of a lot of perspectives, sometimes contradictory perspectives, and figuring out how we could, with a lotta respect for each other's point of view, incorporate that into the films. I think, for me, it's almost like a movement experience. And I say that because there also, certainly within SNCC a lot of debate and a lotta argument about which way we're gonna go, but that always within it was that sense of respect for the other point of view. And I think it's made us [pause] oh my gosh! Callie! Lord have mercy. Yes, we have to introduce Callie.

I left out one of my dearest friends, Callie Crossley.

I'm-

And that's because she wasn't on the right piece of paper.

I never am.

And she says she never is. I think, I think I met Callie, she was the first producer I met because when Henry was hiring producers way back there on Eyes on the Prize I, he asked me if I would interview a woman he had spoken to. And I went over and met her and introduced her and fell in love with her. Callie is a very strong, wonderful person. If I could have my-

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

-so I can see what she's done. That's not the right paper.

Anyway. We have many, you know how many papers we have in this place here? Anybody got Callie's stuff here?

[unintelligible]

Callie Crossley. I'm not gonna worry about it. I'll let, I'll let Callie talk a little bit. But Callie is another person who was involved directly in the movement. She is the producer, along with co-producer Jim DeVinney - thank you, Judy - who, they received the Academy Award nomination. And of course I feel that they should've received the ca, Academy Award.

Right. [applauds]

Her national...and she received the National Emmy wa, Award for the Selma March segment of Eyes. And she is now a senior producer of, of, was the senior producer for CBS documentary.

ABC.

NBC?

ABC.

ABC.

Please, get it right. [laughs]

[laughs]

Yeah. We can't mix up those things. The ABC documentary Blacks in White America. Now, I wanna say that my flubbing of this introduction in no way indicates my feeling and love for Callie Crossley.

That's right.

Incidentally, while I'm up, are there any other Eye producers or workers from Blackside in the audience? If they would just stand for a minute, if they're here, because they constitute the team. And now I think I've done it all.

OK. Let me just add one-

Oh, yes. [applauds]

Callie, by the way, is also a continuing producer for 20/20. Just, just 'cause I'm about to also reference Callie, so it's a good thing we introduced her. [laughs]

[laughs]

When I talk about the different perspectives that we had to incorporate in these films, we saw it first, first at rough cut. And we had been seeing it all through the summer as we decided not only how to deal with the programs but even what programs to incorporate. I mean, the series is so chockfull of events, and the movement begins to diversify, and how you deal with all the little communities where it's popping up and, and the kinds of energy that is popping up in those communities. So, at rough cut, which is a time when it's at the really formative stages and it's the first cut of the film, we brought in a lot of advisors, and also participants, activists. And particularly Callie came in from the first series. And I realize, we were talking about the Panther piece, and I, I remember during the time with the Panthers, growing up in Oakland I thought to myself as an old SNCC person who was at least tactically nonviolent, oh, they're gonna get us killed. You know, they're gonna. You know, it's, it's that whole cep, conception. Not that they maybe should not be doing what they're doing, but they shouldn't talk about it. So, that's me. Now, at the rough cut, Callie came up and she's, having grown up in Memphis, younger than me, and she says what she remembers about, about the Panthers is the idea that they were Black men and women standing up for the first time, for her. The sense of the strength of that. The sense of not the media image of Black folks getting beaten over the head at sit-ins. And that that was a very empowering image for her. Now, what it meant is that I then began to incorporate that in terms of the way I saw the Panthers as well. So, one of the things that we had to do was to show all the sides and still not lose that necessary point of view, which you have to have in any film. And not homogenize it. To strike a balance between the way Blacks saw this period, and even within that there's no consensus, and also to strike it so that the larger society, larger White society could also gain access to it. Now, my assumption, and I'm just talking personally, is that if you do it right, the Black experience and the Black context can be as universal as a White context. And that is assuming that it is done well and inclusively. And I think when we see, you won't see a clip from that now, but Ocean Hill-Brownsville, for example, in Brooklyn is another segment we're doing. And what's important about that is that at the end, although they're talking about community control of schools within Brooklyn, what you get is the universality of that when one of the women who was part of the community board says, What we were talkin' about was power to the people. And all poor and minority communities need power. They don't have that same sense of control. And I think that, for me, one of the main things about both first series and the second series was what it says to young people, and that it empowers them and makes them know that they can do something, they can make a difference. And I think that they need to know that we did it once before in order to know that they can do it again. And our particular view of this history from Blackside I think is going to be very crucial to that. So, let me just open this up now to some questions. And the first one, which I'd like to open up to all the panelists, is...and maybe Callie could speak to this first in terms of the first series. I should mention, by the way, that although you heard what particular segments these producers and, and editors are dealing with that you're seeing, they're also, they made, they were involved in the production of others. For example, Callie, although she did co-production, was co-producer on the Selma segment, was also coproducer on that fourth show which involved Albany, March on Washington, and Birmingham. The other team is involved, as I said, in affirmative action in Bakke and, and the Ki, the show on Dr. King, but is also doing busing and Maynard Jackson. So...and then I am involved in Ali, but I'm also the series producer and there are a number of other shows involved with that. So, the question though is, what, what the main points or concepts were that you were trying to get across and to convey through your particular program.

Assuming all of you are familiar with the first series, my show on, on four was the March on Washington, Albany. We were trying to, we claim, Jim and I, that we got the movement in the fourth show. That in the first show you had an individual standing up with some organizing around that community. In the second show, we saw the impact of law. You know, we'd had Brown versus the Board of Education, now we're talking about laws to desegregate schools. In the third show, SNCC's coming together and students entering, realizing they can be a force in the movement. And by the fourth show the movement moves out nationwide. And by that we meant not only students now, individuals, everybody understanding that something is happening across the country. But as much, Whites, for the first time, in, in some significant numbers at the March on Washington, feeling like this is something that I need to be involved in 'cause we're talking about laws and changes and a movement that is affecting the entire nation and my life. So that was a concept that we were tryin' to get across in show four. Show five was the Mississippi show. Talk about what happened at...with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. That was not my show, I just wanted to let you know where we linked. And then that was a movement toward voting. Recognizing that we're talking about, in order to make it all work for us, we gotta have access to that ballot. So, in Orlando's show in show five, he was dealing with the efforts of Black folks in Mississippi particularly to try to make that happen. We leaped over to show six, which was my show, and we at that point were talking about, again, looking back to Whites' involvement and a national movement. Looking at two stories there: what was happening in Selma with the people and the org at the grassroots movement, and what was happening in Washington. And if you recall [clears throat] at the back end after the beatings on, on the bridge when the senator made the statement, Gee, we're no longer talking about civil rights, we're talking about human rights. And so, the embracing of all of that coming together in that show, but at the end letting you know that, for some Black folks, this was not enough and we're moving on to the next segment. So that was essentially some of the nuggets of, of the concept that we were trying' to get across in the shows that I produced.

Yeah. And maybe you all could talk about, particularly with first 204, and then 206, what you're trying to do with that.

Well, I think in the first of the two shows that we deal with which deals with Dr. King and, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1967 and '68, in the series at that point much of the movement that you see in Eyes I has come under a great deal of pressure and a lot of the-

Louder, please.

Yeah.

Why don't you speak...?

Much of the movement that you see in Eyes I has come into harder times. There's a lot of reaction in the country, there's a lot of violence in the country. Traditional allies were turning away. And we were trying to focus using the character of Dr. Martin Luther King to talk about what the movement was trying to do, the pressures that the movement was under and the solutions they were looking for to be able to refocus the attention of the nation away from the War in Vietnam, away from the focus on, on violence and backlash, and what happened to that movement. What happened when King moved into calls for more radical redistribution of income in terms of the economy, moved to public opposition to the war. So that what we were looking for was contextually what's happening in the United States and inside of the movement. What are the questions that the movement has to answer? Much of the footage that we had access to, our internal debates of SCLC, much of which I don't think has been seen on public television for twenty years, so that you can actually see debates. What should we do? How should we go? Should we go to Washington, D.C.? What are the fallbacks and the drawbacks to something like that? And also, you can see the pressures on King himself. To see the human picture and the human toll of what goes on when these decisions are made and what happens when strategies fail and when they succeed, so that you're looking for the tenor of the times, but also the movement is coming to a real crossroads, and that crossroads in 1968 involved a lotta bad things, but the movement also goes on, so at the end of the show we're also hoping that, as sad as it may be, the audience doesn't wanna give up and also wants to see where the movement goes after massive nonviolence core campaigns like SCLC no longer take center stage in the movement.

The other show that we produced is the next-to-the-last show in the series. And it has to do with the relationship between law and the struggle, between law and what people are trying to make happen. We begin with one of the legacies of the civil rights movement which is a body of law that's been enacted. From Brown v Board of Education through the Civil Rights Act there were...nondiscrimination, equality of opportunity was theoretically the law of the land. But in the 1970s, Blacks were faced with the reality that it wasn't happening. And so then what we look at are different ways that Blacks tried to put some substantive reality into the theoretical promise of equality. So, we look at, in Boston, the attempts of Black parents to get the law enforced, to get Brown v Board of Education enforced, to get the segregated school system desegregated. The other two stories in the hour look at affirmative action. It was very important to me that we not look at affirmative action, especially as it was being dismantled by the Supreme Court, solely in the way that it is often misperceived [pause] because of the difficulty of understanding what affirmative action is all about, and because of the emotionalism connected with it. Affirmative action changed the way that this country did business. Affirmative action also was a government policy that benefited many, many, many people, not just Blacks. In fact, White women have benefited from affirmative action more than Blacks. One of the popular misconceptions about affirmative action, though, is that it is-there's a twisted cost-benefit analysis where popularly it's often thought of as something that costs Whites and benefits Blacks. So, one of the important tasks that we had to face then in telling the history was in telling it correctly so that people understand it free of all the emotional baggage that it's surrounded with. Because this stuff can be very dry and boring, the other task that we had was to clothe it in a way that would make it palatable. Maybe even interesting.

So that the story of Maynard Jackson instituting affirmative action as citywide policy was one that we undertook to try to show how Blacks put affirmative action in place. And largely through the force of his personality, through Maynard Jackson's personality we think that it does have some, some flavor and, and works. The task in the, the story on the Bakke decision was again to try to turn the way that people misunderstand affirmative action on its head. Many times people think of affirmative action as reverse discrimination. For example, in the same way that when people heard of school desegregation in Boston, they heard of it as forced busing. So that what we wanted to do in Bakke was to tell the story from the point of view of all of the, the Black students who benefited from the policy of affirmative action, and who were threatened by this challenge to affirmative action in the face of the, the Bakke challenge. And again, to try to penetrate all the intellectualisms so that you understood how at that time people understood and misunderstood this issue.

And then I guess what I should do is just talk about Ali since that is the other clip that you'll see. I think what we were trying to do with Ali operated on two levels. One is the very human, human and very universal sense, which is that you have to be able, even as the lone voice, to stand up for a principle that you think is righteous. And to do that even though you know the house may fall in on you, to know that you may lose your job, you may lose your house, you may lose this, you may lose that. But that if the cause is really righteous and you really believe in it, that you got to deal with that and you got to stand for it. Now, that can operate within the school, and I think, I mean, the way to...that many people can understand this because it happens even at, within the classroom. I mean, there are times when kids would like to take an unpopular position but may not be able to do that because they're afraid that they're friends will, you know, laugh at them or they'll be out there by themselves. There are causes within even the school, in terms of, say, for instance, the way they deal with women's sports in school. There are just a lot of issues within the school that, if you take a stand on it, you may be out there by yourself. That there has to be a way that they can see the universality of that thing, that it's righteous, you got to do it. Now, the second level of it is what it means for a Black person, and particularly a Black man to stand up in this society and say, You will call me by my name. My name is Muhammad Ali, you will call me by that. What it means for him as a champion, the U.S. champion to say, I'm now nation, a member of the Nation of Islam. In a society that says and continues in some ways to say that Blacks are submissive and stupid and lazy and powerless, what it meant for Muhammad Ali in 1966, 1964 through, all the way through to say, You will, you will come to me on my terms. And it is not the old stereotypes that you have been used to seeing. So that we're operating with Ali on two different levels, both of which should be empowering for society. Particularly because, for example, I remember being in a, in a store, my favorite store, Bolton's, in New York City and there were, there were two salesgirls and they were speaking Spanish. And the older, White saleswoman was standing up on a second level and she said, No speaking Spanish in here! No speaking. Now, I looked at her and I said, "Can you do that? Can you do that legally?" and she looked aghast. Now-

-the problem is [laughs], one, one of the things that I think the Black Power movement did, and we, we try and show that through the series, is that it empowers a lot of people, so you begin to hear Tijerina in New Mexico talking about Hispanic power. You begin to hear the, the Asian American community talking about Asian power. That there is a sense, in the same sense that we talked about Ocean-Hill Brownsville that power to the people was really what we needed, and that you begin with the sense that my culture and my heritage is correct and valid and, and empowering. So I think that's, that's mainly what we're trying to do with, with, with the Ali segment and I think it comes through in a lot of the other segments as well.

I would add-

Go ahead.

-that the seeds of that, if you look in that last march at Selma and see the faces of the people who were in the crowd, that the seeds of that were planted there, so that the baton is passed from Eyes I to Eyes II in terms of the history, in terms of those folk who go out and empower themselves with their own movements, women's movement, whatever. Never forget that the birth of all of these movements came from the civil rights movement. That's number one.

And so then we're talking about passing a-

-thank you.

[laughs]

So when you understand that, then when you talk about the empowerment that Judy is talking about in series II in a very specific way, it's very easy to see how that jumped off from, from that movement.

Mm-hmm.

[unintelligible]

Yeah. I'm gonna pa-suggest one other question that we'll answer and then, 'cause I wanna make sure that we all have room to listen to a lotta questions from you. So, the second question and last question will be to describe a particularly hard decision that y'all had to make. And I would hope also Lillian because Lillian, as the editor, sees a lotta stuff going down on the edit room floor. And, and I think, if you could, when, when it comes to you, to talk about what it was like to cut the, the King segment for you personally would be, yes, OK. OK, Callie. Over to you.

Well, I'm sure all of you historians probably caught the fact that you never saw George Wallace's stand in the schoolhouse door speech in show four.

[inaudible]

[laughs] Yes.

[laughs] Well, we, we really suffered about that because, I mean, obviously that's, you know, it said a lot about what the tenor of the times were, but also it's fairly dramatic footage and we had some great stuff. So, we shed a few tears by seeing that on the floor of the cutting room. In the Selma segment, I, there was a minister from Birmingham, White minister who led a fairly dramatic march the week before the march across the bridge, the big march. And we had some footage that just makes filmmakers weep.

[laughs]

[laughs] [stutters] A, a, and, and also just what it took for this group of people. It was an all-White march. And we felt very torn about not demonstrating in a, in a filmic and a dramatic way, and also in, in an editorial way that there was support of, of a nature that was really detrimental to the health and well-being of these people. This man was from the South, his family was affected, in fact they had to move away, change their names, all kinds of stuff because of his involvement in the movement, and he chose to do that anyway. And also, also, in terms of an editorial sense, setup those cops and everybody racing, I think, when we started heading across the bridge the first time, when everybody went across the bridge. So those were the kinds of decisions that we made in an editorial and dramatic and filmic way we wish we didn't have to make. And, and then there's also, there's, there's, for every one shot in Selma there's twelve rolls. I mean, it was just incredible the kinda stuff that was going on grassroots-wise with the people in that community. And we weren't able to, in the fullest way, demonstrate that, but we hope you got the sense of it.

Mm-hmm. Jackie?

Well.

[laughs]

Hard decisions. Some of the hard decisions for me personally had to do with-

We can't hear you back here.

Sorry. Some of the hard decisions for me personally had to do with interviews which couldn't fit into the films just because of time constraints, and because of the need to keep the focus clear. In some sense, each of the stories that we deal with deserves an hour, at least, in and of itself to tell. So, when you're trying to cram the story of the desegregation of the Boston schools into thirty minutes it means that there are some hard choices. So [pause] so when I think of, of people we interviewed who told wonderful stories who would fit in the miniseries of instead of the classic comic of, that's when I think of hard decisions.

Yes.

Well, I guess I should start by telling you what an editor does in terms of the actual specific things which you might not be familiar with. The ratio of the show was probably ten to twenty to one. So, in most instances, fifteen times...there are fifteen shots for every shot that goes, go in. So you have to...being the, what I, what I call it, the emotional channel for your producers who are out there trying to get people to tell the facts correctly, people to open up and be emotional on screen, you have to maximize what they give you. And often the comments that are selected give you the true guidance for what the cut is going to be. The King funeral was an, an, an instance in which I was given, I asked for and was given free rein. And with great personal respect and fear, because I had to do the right thing about this, for this, this historic event that everybody in this country has a reaction to, I, I proceeded. The perspective that I chose was that I wanted Mrs. King to be pleased if she ever saw it, and that was from the very beginning. The other thing I asked for which I rarely do was spiritual guidance to be clear as to what needed to be included. There were certain things that were cut down, but my...when you see it from the historical perspective, the facts are there. He, he gets shot. There is a reaction, there's rioting. There's the fu-the wake. There is the actual funeral. And then there's the emotional aftermath that everybody has. So given that outline you then pick the shots that are the essence of those feelings. So, a, a, a sequence like this is feeling-driven. For me, editing is feeling-driven. If I have a chance to make a cut for content or for emotion, I go for emotion. And so, in that sense I think that I am able to and enable the words to hang on or penetrate people because everybody knows what it's like to have someone die, everybody knows what it's like to be afraid, and everybody's been angry, and everybody's probably felt righteous. So all you have to do is contact, and I say it like, you know, it's like you pick up a piece of paper, but if you could connect with it in yourself, you can put it out there because the material will, either you will discover that you had the shot that you needed or you will find it. And in a very calculating...you have to be both calculating and emotionally reckless in order to be able to do it.

Could I, before Paul says, could I just mention that you will see the, the tears that Lillian literally shed while she was cutting that. So, Paul.

I think for the film that Lillian's talking about, we were presented with what seemed to be a fairly easy task but I think was, was pretty difficult in that we were given a film that centers around Martin Luther King and, and it's easy in that everybody knows who Martin Luther King is, or they think they know who he is. And so that any, you know, people will watch a show because they're bringing in some sort of knowledge. The difficulty in the show is that we were dealing with a King that nobody really knows, or very few people know. I mean, the King of 1967 is not the, the King of "I Have a Dream" in 1963. It's the King who's dealing with a very different America. And to succeed we had to be able to present a Doctor King in which, when you saw his pain and the pain that his movement was going through at that time, you see what the movement is up against and you see where America has come and where it's changed in a very short period of time. The problem that we have in, in trying to fit this all into fifty-four minutes and five seconds television time-

-which may not, may not be, may or may not be the perfect time to present a story, is that we also have to present a context, because if you just focus on King himself, then it becomes a biography. And a biography is interesting, but it's not as interesting as the times that a person lives in. So that, for instance, we had incredible footage of what was going on in Memphis, Tennessee. A story that almost nobody knows anything about, the Memphis Sanitation Strike. It was more than just the place where Dr. King went to be killed. And we cut a long version of Memphis and it is beautiful. There's footage there that, that I try to forget about that we cannot use because you cannot...if you have King out of the story for too long in a story where King is the dramatic focus, then the movie doesn't hold together. And I think for me personally, probably the most touching movement, moment of anything, of anybody I've ever interviewed where a gentleman who was a city councilman back in 1968, who told us what happened to him personally when he broke with the White majority on the city council and began voting with the sanitation workers union. And he was getting phone calls at dawn waking him up, talking about how it didn't bother him. And there's a pause and then he says, but it bothered his wife who was dying of cancer. Complete moment that we didn't expect and you can see this on film and it just doesn't fit into our story because there, you know, for reasons of, of just it doesn't fit into that story. And it's the sorta thing that, for me personally and for everybody that works on this series, there are these moments where, in a shorter version, as we're constrained to do on television, it's almost best for us to forget that we had it. The good thing about it is that we have wonderful things that do fit into the dramatic structure and make for very powerful movies, but those choices leave their marks on us.

I'd like to say one other thing. Also, from the perspective, having been a teacher a long time ago, that was my chosen profession, that one of the good things is that the, the comments that Paul and Jackie are talking about are preserved in the archive so that you all have access to this, and when you need to know more about the story and you feel like we've missed something, well, you can go hear and see the people who said these things, and I think that that's one of the good things that the series has provided.

And read it in the book as well.

Yeah.

OK. I'm gonna do real quick because we're, I wanna make sure we get some time. On Ali, I think the thing that...the, the hardest decision we had to make was not including the interview we had with him in the film. And the reason was...

Louder, Judy.

[inaudible]

Oh, I'm sorry. Is, is this good?

Wrong one, the other.

Wrong one. Oh, that's the reason, OK. How about this?

[unintelligible]

OK. The hardest decision we had to make on the Ali film was the fact that we would not be able to include the interview we had done with Ali in the film. And the reason for that was that the film itself is so powerful and shows him as so strong in his, in his sense of himself and sense of what he had to do in terms of, of, of the racial piece and also the anti-Vietnam war piece that, when we kept and we kept even up until two weeks ago, and we're about to go to, to narration now, even until two weeks ago we tried to insert an interview, couple of cuts in there. It is so difficult to understand him that you get stopped and you almost feel sorry for him, and you don't want that to be in the piece.

Could you explain that Judy?

OK. When we went to the interview, he's in, in Detroit now and, or outside Detroit, and it's interesting because I, we, I talked to his wife before and I said, Is he able to, to be understood? and she said, Oh, yeah, you know, there's no problem. Well, we got there and it's true, after a while we started thinking that, oh, he's getting better. You can understand him better.

[unintelligible]

Yeah. I'm sorry.

You need to say he's sick because [unintelligible].

Oh, I'm sorry. Do people understand that he's, he is-I'm sorry, Ali now has something that seems to be akin to Parkinson's, although there are others who feel that it's because he just got beat up so bad. I mean, he just, you can't keep in the ring like he did and not have some, some physical impairment as a result of it. Particularly because he was shut out of boxing in this country during his prime, and so when he came back again he had to make up for that. And so, he shot, he probably fought at a time when he shouldn't a fought. But the result is that it is very difficult, and so when he was, for example, on Arsenio Hall, he was very quiet, and what they did, as they did on-

Donahue.

-Donahue, that's right, is to surround him with other people who could kind of key off him. We could not do that, and so when you kept trying to put his bites in, when it is very difficult to understand him. And we found even while we were, as I was saying, even when we were doing the interview, after a while you do get so that you can almost understand and you think he's getting better, but what's happening is that you are becoming more accustomed to hearing him.

Yeah.

So, what happened when we tried to cut, cut him in was you would be going along and we have this energy and you get the sense of him and then suddenly there he was and it would take a full two, three seconds, which is an eternity in film, to hear him and to understand what he was saying, and then it would stop it, and then it would go on a little bit. So, that's why for me, and for all of us, I think, it was a very, very hard decision. But I do think that the film is a better film for it. So, having said that, I'd like to...we'd like to hear from you and...yeah.

OK. We have just probably about ten or fifteen minutes to, to ask the producers some questions. I wanna remind you that they are here at great sacrifice today because they're now closing out their, their films, and so we do appreciate their presence. Let's start out this side. Somebody everybody starts on that side, so let's start on this side. Are there any questions back there? Yeah. Would you stand up and speak loud so everybody can hear what you say?

First of all, I wanna say that, for me, as a woman of color, it's really inspiring to see other women of color painted in an important role in this production.

I just wanna acknowledge what you said that the African American movement had a big impact on other movements like the Chicana movement and the Asian American movement. And I was wondering what you think are the possibilities of at some point putting together a documentary like that, that included the other movements, you know, and the experience of it.

Anybody wanna take that?

Actually-

Is that a question or just a...?

Yeah, just I might be too idealistic-

Anybody wanna take it?

-to try and put something that includes all different minority groups in this country.

Well, I think one of the things that helps give Eyes some of its legitimacy is the fact that it comes out of a Black-owned production company. And so, I would hope that other people who see their own history reflected in this history will pick up the ball and roll with it and expect that they'll get a lot of help from those of us who have already done this.

OK. This one.

For those of us who teach the civil rights movement and, and have been able to use Eyes I effectively, one of the things that I found really useful was the source book which in some ways takes the parts that you just had to leave on the floor and lets the students take them home. And I, and I'm hoping that there will be a source book as part of this. And, and to follow on that, when you're talking about the, the Martin Luther King at the end and how he's different, do you find, those of you who have been through all the film footage, that if someone were to assign, for instance, Taylor Branch's book Parting of the Waters that that would help give a full view to a, a classroom that would be complementary to your work? Or how do you feel about that, the source book and, and Branch?

Well, I know the, the book that's coming out with this is going to include many of the things that we're talking about. I mean, that's one of the nice things for us is that, as we were finishing the films, we were given the gallies of the chapters that corresponded with our films and it was very nice to see some of the stuff that we missed a lot there in the book. And obviously a book can go into much deeper detail. I read a nice article recently about how documentaries are fine, but documentaries in combination with literature is the best way because you can get many things. The source book, Taylor Branch's book is a beautiful book. I mean, there, there are, there are many things and the more things that a teacher can do to supplement that the better, 'cause you don't want a dependent.

[inaudible]

What?

[inaudible]

I hear Sarah, who was the editor. Yes.

Wanted to briefly mention that the book Voices of Freedom by Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer with me will be out from Bantam in January 1990 when the series comes out. And it's an oral history based on the transcripts of the films, both Eyes I and Eyes II. So, I think it will be a useful tool.

Is, is Jack Mendelsohn in the room? Where's Jack? Is he here?

Right here.

Oh! Jack, could you just very briefly give a, a statement to the group about the archive thing that we're in the middle of now?

Well, I was delighted to have the archive mentioned for the value that it has in the, the ratios that were described. The archive is enormous. The programs run an hour a piece and there are eight of 'em and then six of 'em previously, but the archive is-

Could you speak louder [unintelligible]?

Just, yeah.

Get on the mic.

As has been suggested to you, the archive, which is a result of the production of the two series, is a simply enormous national treasure. It's, it's immense in its complexity and depth and variety. And so, as has been described to you, that archive is rapidly going to be readied for all kinds of uses. Not just uses by scholars but uses by communities that wanna go on writing their own civil rights history, by teachers, by curriculum makers, by community organizers, by all kinds of people who are interested in carrying on the struggle. And so, one of the things we're very pleased about is the archive. And I'll be talking a little bit more about it when I introduce Vince Harding later today.

Thank you, Jack. In this section right here, yes.

I just, first I, I'd like to thank you all for sharing your experience with us. I'm curious about how you brought the series to closure. What were some of the, what did you want the viewers to leave with?

Where's Henry?

Yes. The reason we're smiling is we are not quite at closure yet.

We, [laughs] we are still struggling. We are...is Henry still here or is he gone?

He stepped out.

He's gone, OK.

Closing the series [inaudible]

That's right. [laughs] We do whatever we want. [laughs]

That's right. We, hmm, we are still closing the last four. We are...let's see, the last, yeah, only four of the eight hours has actually been locked, as we say. The other four are yet to be done. And that says, has some, says something about how difficult this process has been, much more difficult than any of us ever dreamed. Part of it has to do with just the complexity of the material. It has to do with the lack of footage. It has to do with just a lotta things. And the fact that we struggled so much at the beginning, too, over exactly what these shows would say. When we started the first series, all of the producers know when they came in what the lineup was gonna be. That was already done because so much work had been done before that. We knew it was gonna start with Till-Montgomery, it was gonna go into, I mean, the lineup was already there. When we came in, we as producers decided and struggled over what that was gonna be, and that was very different from the first series. All of which is to say that, yes, well, more or less, yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. But at least-

[laughs]

-at least, what I mean to say is-

We struggled, too. [laughs]

Oh, yes. Absolutely. No, we, we, the first series definitely struggled. But at least the lineup was already there. You knew what events you were gonna cover. This time it was even de, deciding what events would be covered. And the other, we thought we would be through in June, let's just say that. It's now November. I had Halloween lights that I'd forgotten to put up last summer, last Halloween and I thought I was gonna have to take it back to my job in New York. I put 'em up this time. Yes. So it's been, it's been a longer process than we thought, but we will be, we will be on air January 15th with our first hour.

I think, I think [unintelligible]-

Yes.

-I think it's important to state that the reality of the situation is that the executive producer has the last word, and so there's, there is always that struggle, too. One more person in this section here. Anybody else in this section who would like to ask? Back there, yeah.

Some of us at lunch were talking about cooperative learning and methods of teaching that encourage cooperative learning as being a method of empowerment for children. This isn't really a question so much as a comment maybe you could comment on, but it, it sounds so cooperative, your process. Not that it's without struggle. And I wonder if there is anything more about that that you can share that would be illustrative to us as we think about teaching children.

I'll add to that.

And because I'm in what's traditionally considered a support position, you have to mediate. The most important thing that I always bring to a job is a realization. When the project like this, the subject matter is more important than any one of us. Therefore the truth is more important than any one of us. So, my idea or another person's idea or another person's idea is not really more important than what the truth is, and the truth is both factual, this happened then, and human. And I don't know how you teach that except by example. And I think that the respect that we have for each other within our team has been earned and there's, not that there has not been difficulty, but somebody has to have the last call. That person is designated generally. Sometimes you go outside the group for help if you doubt yourself, but ultimately if, if your heart is in the right place, and I know this sounds hokey, but if your heart is in the right place and you're telling the truth then all this other stuff really just ultimately goes away, because what goes on the screen and what the truth is about the history is more important than, as Jackie phrases, who struck John. It, it doesn't matter. So.

I, I would, I would add something to that in that, in the cooperative process at Eyes, each of us knew the material very well so that the cooperative nature grows out of...if your support person, and I don't even mean Lillian because I consider her a major player, but if, if, you know, a PA, a production associate walks through the hall and says, You know, I, I saw Selma. I don't know why you have that bite in there with so-and-so.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Seems to me you could do...well, that's a person who's speaking from knowledge of the material. So you first have got to have that. And then we had an open atmosphere where anybody could say what they wanted to, and Henry had an open-door policy. Whether it was open or not, I chose to think it was open.

[laughs]

And went in to talk to him about things. So, in that way, then you, you know, from the top down and the bottom up, everybody's communicating about the same kinda material and you get therefore a richness about your discussion. So, when you start talking about cooperative learning, I think the first emphasis is that people understand the, the value and the, the importance of understanding the material and then everybody can bring their own perspectives to it.

In this group. Yes, way back there.

Ron Bailey, Northeast University. I wonder if you guys...it's very impressive to hear you as young filmmakers and as young Black filmmakers talk about this process.

And I am very impressed. I want, I want you to extend that, speak to your role as educators, OK. Given, you know, seventy percent of the homes being with video cassette players and cable, the penetration of cable and the use of the media in the schools and so on, what do you say about that to young people? In other words, how do you take this technical side of what you do and talk to young people about media and about the role of media in society and how they might use it and become empowered by it as opposed to what generally happens in this society, you know, being manipulated by, by it?

Well, I think first you have to show them a way that media relates to them and to their experience. And as a person that trotted from school to school in Boston and other places to discuss Eyes I, and still do that to some extent, I found that when I entered most classrooms and I had been presented by the teacher as someone to talk about some history, boy was that a, boy, they were not into that, let me tell you. [laughs]

Talk about a cold audience. So, you know, what I began by was trying to find those touch tones in that first series that would relate to young people, so I only brought pieces from the series, not even some pieces from my shows, that had to do with young folk seeking, finding in themselves something that was important and giving back to it. So that in show four we're talking about the Birmingham children's march, in show three we're talking about SNCC and students coming together. And suddenly...and then when I would begin with them I would say, How old are you? and they would tell me and I'd say, Well, you know, it's only been fifteen years, and this stuff was different. You wouldn't be sitting in this classroom in this way, listening to this. That got their attention. And so, we first linked onto the material itself and how the importance of the history related to where they were, whether they be Black or White, OK, because, you know, in certain cases, when I go to some classes and the White students are like, OK, well, this is Black history. Soon as she gets done, I'm gonna leave.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

And, you know. And I would inform them that, you know, you would be surprised some of the people that you see in the bakery and your lawyers and whatnot from this area were part of this, drawn to this, and, and became, became changed by that. And you too have been changed. Once they linked with the history, then we can begin to discuss. And they'd always ask, Well, why is that students now don't seem to have it? Well, you have it in here. It was more important, as Lillian said, that movement to these students than, than, than who they were individually. So, from there, then we begin a discussion about media, but I think the first step is really to relate to the history, and they can only begin to relate to it if, if we, those of us who have had the privilege of working on a series like Eyes can, can bring that material to film, I think.

Let me just say one other quick thing. I...when I talk to kids, I also talk about what you can, 'cause it's true, they keep wantin' to know, well, when is the movement gonna start again? And-

-[laughs] And what are you gonna do about it? So, I guess for me it's always letting them understand that it always started very small. That with Montgomery, for example, it was Mrs. Parks. And even before Mrs. Parks there were two others who had sat down and refused to get up. That there, there were always, it always starts very small. I mean, even when they were doing Montgomery, they thought it was only gonna be a one-day boycott. You know, and you think...I remember listening to, to the guy we were interviewing who was head of transportation for Mon-Montgomery Bus Boycott. And we interview him and he says very routinely, Yeah, well, we moved ten thousand people every day. And it's like, you know, and he didn't even understand, I don't think, how monumental that concept was. He moved ten thousand people every single day. They knew when, when the domestics were working in the White homes where those domestics would be, what time they got off. They had a, a, a transportation system built around that. They had a schedule. They would be where that person was, they would pick them up, they would take them home. There were people who, who, who, who contributed their cars and their buses and their so-and-so, their taxis to do that. And so, it's, it's both the sense of individual commitment and, and, again, the Ali thing of standing up and knowing that if you stand up, maybe you can get two other people, three other people to do it with you. And that sense that we can be very, very highly organized when we wanna be. And that again, that also starts small. But for me it's, in terms of the media, Ron, that you were talking about, my key thing, I get so incensed at some of the media images of the third-world peoples on television I don't know what to do. And for me, I always talk to kids about how, You all need to get together and when you see something that you get really incensed about, you call the next dorm, you call the people and you start jamming the switchboards at those television stations. That is something you don't have to write, you don't have to do some tremendous march or anything, you can do it right from your dorm and you can, and you can let them know they can no longer do this to us. So that's, that's a, a media thing that they can start doing right away.

I remember when the Eyes on the Prize premiered in New York, Eyes I, and I was sitting behind a whole row of young people, Black and White, and when the thing was over one of them turned to other said, Boy, don't I wish I lived in those days.

[laughs]

One other question over here and I think we're done.

In the segment you showed earlier, we saw a glimpse of Malcolm X when he was a spokesman for national, Nation of Islam rather, and that's how he was remembered, as a hatemonger and as a reverse racist. I wonder if, in Eyes II, you deal with Malcolm after he returned from Mecca and some of his views had changed as to how to approach the struggle here in America.

Well, Judy should answer that since she has-

Yeah.

-I mean, the short answer is yes, but-

Right. [laughs] Short answer is yes. Many people criticize us for not having Malcolm in the first series, and the reason for that was that it was a southern-based struggle, so the only time you saw him was when he came into Selma at the, at the behest of SNCC during the Selma march. We definitely show him in another context, and I think that's the advantage, again, it's point of view, it's how you give a different sense of that history. And one of the things you may have noticed even in the sampler is that the first image you see of Malcolm, he's smiling. And that was the producers' insistence also, not just in, in the sampler, but in their series, in their program on him. That you see him smiling, that you see what he meant to the Black community-

Right.

-before you even saw how, how the White community may have perceived him because of the media coverage of him. And that you see also the way he expands so that he's no longer only talking about Black empowerment, but also talking about Black rights, but also human rights. And that you, you see the effect that he has throughout the series, that's the other thing. You will hear echoes of Malcolm and his sense of community control, his sense of [pause] well, I'm thinking also of Black commercial enterprises and the necessity to, to, to do things within the community so that our, our dollar, Black dollar doesn't turn over, you know, ten times when it should turn, turn over ten times when it only turns over once now. That kind of thing. That you'll see that all the way through the series, but again it is very much the broader context for Malcolm.

I think that's all the time that we have, but let's give a big hand to these wonderful people.

Are there any announcements to make for the next move, or does everybody know where they're going? Thank you very much.

What did you want me to do now?

Oh, well, if you wanna, I don't know what, I was gonna say...

Hello. Is, is anyone, hello? Does anyone-