Eyes on the Prize

Birmingham Protesting

WENHAM, MA - Strongly believing in equality during The Civil Rights Movement, President Kennedy says, “Race has no place, in right or in law.” During the 1960’s The Civil Rights Movement took a drastic turn from when first beginning in the 1950’s, resulting in several deaths each month.

Film production Eyes on the Prize shows the fight for freedom among diversity throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Young students marched the streets of Birmingham, AL, while their parents worked in the factories, threatened by police dogs and fire hoses. The occurrence of The Civil Rights Movement during the 1960’s was a life changing experience for American’s. The horror of what was occurring to these young men and women devastated the national news. It was time for the federal government to take action.

Young student attached by police dogs

Powerful leader Martin Luther King did not believe in violence but rather "filling the jail." King's strategy was to protest and fill the jails throughout Birmingham with intent that the government would have no other choice but to give in. Yet during this time King was one of the few to talk or give any form of speech, talking was not voiced by the people but rather through song. “I’m on my way to freedom land, there’s nothing you can do to turn me around. I’m on my way to freedom land…”