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.