Tag Archives: eyes on the prize

Black Voices Matter, Cambridge Forum classics, Podcasts

I’ll Make Me A World

Filmmaker Sam Pollard is a dedicated chronicler of the Black experience in America, moving freely across film and long-form television as well as narrative and documentary. His films explore complicated American figures and the extended aftershocks of racial inequality.

His first assignment as a documentary producer came in 1989 for Henry Hampton’s Blackside production Eyes On The Prize II: America at the Racial Crosswords.  For one of his episodes in this series, he received an Emmy.  Eight years later, he returned to Blackside as Co-Executive Producer/Producer of Hampton’s last documentary series I’ll Make Me A World: Stories of African-American Artists and Community.  For the series, Mr. Pollard received The George Peabody Award.  Between 1990 and 2000, Mr. Pollard edited a number of Spike Lee’s films:  Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Girl 6, Clockers, Bamboozled. 

I’ll Make Me A World: Sam Pollard 1999

Samuel Pollard is an American film director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. His films have garnered numerous awards such as Peabodys, Emmys, and an Academy Award nomination. In 2020, the International Documentary Association gave him a career achievement award. Currently he teaches filmmaking at NYU’s Tische School of the Arts.

Film at Lincoln Center: Meet Sam Pollard

Black Voices Matter, Cambridge Forum classics

Eyes On The Prize

EYES ON THE PRIZE tells the story of the civil rights era from the point of view of the ordinary men and women whose extraordinary actions launched a movement that changed the fabric of American life, and embodied a struggle whose reverberations continue to be felt today.

The documentary film’s first part, Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years 1954–1965, chronicles the time period between the United States Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education (1954) to the Selma to Montgomery marches of 1965. It consists of six episodes, which premiered on January 21, 1987, and concluded on February 25, 1987. The second part, Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads 1965–1985, chronicles the time period between the national emergence of Malcolm X during 1964 to the 1983 election of Harold Washington as the first African-American mayor of Chicago. 

The driving force behind Eyes on the Prize and Blackside, Henry Hampton won numerous awards for this landmark series and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.  Speaking in 1987 at Cambridge Forum, Hampton talked about his vision of “the remarkable human drama that was the Civil Rights Movement” through the Eyes on the Prize documentary.

Eyes On The Prize – Henry Hampton

Henry Hampton ( 1940 –1998) was an African-American filmmaker. His production company, Blackside, produced over 80 programs—the most recognizable being the documentary Eyes on the Prize, which won Emmy Awards, Peabody Awards, and was nominated for an Oscar.