The Magnifying Effect of Television News: Civil Rights Coverage and Eyes on the Prize

 

Henry Hampton’s award-winning documentary Eyes on the Prize was notable for its reliance on news footage and interviews with civil rights activists. Undergirding the approach was his reliance on a pre-production process called Scholar School where he hosted academics, civil rights activists, and members of the media for intense discussions regarding the civil rights movement. Audio tapes of the media session demonstrate a connection between the development of broadcast news as a credible source of information about the civil rights movement and the movement’s use of the media to obtain national attention for its goals. The narrative uses a constructivist approach to place the details heard on the tapes within the context of civil rights scholarship through the use of interviews and archival materials resulting in a nuanced understanding about the perceptions and role of the media in civil rights coverage.

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Notes

1 Kenneth J. Cooper, “History, Come Alive!,” Washington University Magazine (Winter 1987): 28–33.

2 Norman Boucher, “Eyes on Henry Hampton,” Boston Globe, June 12, 1988.

3 Debra Goldman, “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965: Blackside, Inc., Boston,” View, February 16, 1987.

4 Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads 1965–1985 aired in 1980 and is not part of this study.

5 Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years,” American Anthropologist 92 (1990): 838–9.

6 Charles J. G. Griffin, Movement as Memory: Significant Form in ‘Eyes on the Prize’,” Communication Studies 54 (2003): 198.

7 Judith Vecchione, email to author, 28 October 2015.

8 Jon Else, True South: Henry Hampton and Eyes on the Prize, the Landmark Television Series that Framed the Civil Rights Movement (New York: Viking, 2017).

9 Jesse McKinley, “Henry Hampton Dies at 58; Produced ‘Eyes on the Prize,’” New York Times, November 24, 1998, B10.

10 Karen Everhart Bedford, “Henry Hampton: ‘He endured because his vision was so important,’” Current, December 7, 1998.

11 Henry Hampton, Eyes on the Prize premier program, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston, Mass., November 16, 1986, Henry Hampton Collection, Film and Media Archive, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.

12 Other invited school participants were: Ruth Batson, Anne Braden, Clayborne Carson, Guy Carawan, Julius Chambers, Ramsey Clark, Leslie W. Dunbar, Tony Freyer, David Garrow, Darlene Clark Hine, Odetta Holmes, Ernest G. Green, Linda S. Greene, C.B. King, Steve Lawson, John Lewis, Burke Marshall, Robert Moses, Constance Baker Motley, Alden Morris, James Murray, James Orange, John A. Ricks, Arlie Schardt, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, Harvard Sitkoff, William Strickland, J. Mills Thornton, and Rev. C.T. Vivian. See, “Contact Sheet from Eyes on the Prize School,” Henry Hampton Collection, Film and Media Archive, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.

13 [Judith] Vecchione to [Henry] Hampton, Judy Richardson Personal Papers, Henry Hampton Collection, Film and Media Archive, Washington University, St. Louis, MO.

14 Ibid.

15 Judith Vecchione, email to author, October 28, 2015.

16 Assigned books included Black Protests in the 20th Century by John Bracey, Elliott Ludwig and August Myer; Black Protests by Joanne Grant, The Other American Revolution by Vincent Harding; Simple Justice by Richard Kluger; Origins of the Civil Rights Movement by Randall Morris; and My Soul is Rested by Howard Raines. Henry Hampton Collection, Film and Media Archive, Washington University, St. Louis, MO.

17 Rachel L. Martin, “Making Eyes on the Prize: An Oral History,” Ford Foundation, https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/ford-forum/making-eyes-on-the-prize-an-oral-history.

18 Emilye Crosby, “Making Eyes on the Prize: An Interview with Filmmaker and SNCC Staffer Judy Richardson,” in Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles, a National Movement, edited by Emilye Crosby (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2011).

19 Fox Butterfield, “Black Film Makers Retrace the Civil-Rights Struggle,” New York Times, January 26, 1986.

20 William Faulkner, “Address upon receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature,” in The Portable Faulkner, edited by Malcolm Cowley (New York: Viking, 1967), 724.

21 Judith Vecchione memo to Henry Hampton, Judy Richardson Personal Papers, Henry Hampton Collection, Film and Media Archive, Washington University, St. Louis, MO.

22 Ibid.

23 Judy Richardson, telephone interview with author, September 25, 2015.

24 Vecchione, memo to Henry Hampton.

25 Henry Hampton, School Audio 5-FMA-2-8209 (3-1), author transcript, Henry Hampton Collection, Film and Media Archive, Washington University, St. Louis, MO.

26 Goldman, Eyes on the Prize.

27 Jon Else, telephone interview with author, July 11, 2018.

28 Richardson, interview.

29 Ibid.

30 Else, interview.

31 Goldman, Eyes on the Prize.

32 Clarke Taylor, “TV Series on Civil Rights Due,” Los Angeles Times, October 22, 1985.

33 The author located the tapes while on a research fellowship at the Film and Media Archive, Washington University, St. Louis, MO. The audio tapes were subsequently transcribed by a commercial transcription service at the author’s expense.

34 Norman Sims, True Stories: A Century of Literary Journalism (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2007).

35 Egon G. Guba and Yvonna S. Lincoln, “Paradigmatic Controversies, Contradictions, Emerging Confluences,” in Handbook of Qualitative Research, 3rd ed., edited by Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005), 191–215.

36 School location memo, n. d., Henry Hampton Collection Film and Media Archive, Washington University, St. Louis, MO.

37 Jon Else, True South: Henry Hampton and Eyes on the Prize (New York: Viking, 2017).

38 Else, telephone interview.

39 Henry Hampton, School Audio 1-FMA2-8209 (3-1), personal transcript, Henry Hampton Collection, Film and Media Archive, Washington University, St. Louis, MO.

40 Jim Rutenberg, “Robert J. Northshield, 78, TV News Innovator, Dies,” New York Times, August 24, 2000.

41 Julian Bond, School Audio 5-FMA-2-8209 (3-3), personal transcript, Henry Hampton Collection, Film and Media Archive, Washington University, St. Louis, MO.

42 Elaine Woo, “Jack Nelson dies at 80; Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter helped raise L.A. Times to national prominence,” New York Times, October 21, 2009.

43 Jack Nelson, “The Civil Rights Movement: A Press Perspective,” Human Rights 28 (Fall 2001): 3–6.

44 Richardson, interview.

45 Claude Sitton, interview by Sarah Buynovsky, transcript, Civil Rights and The Press Symposium, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University, April 24, 2004, http://civilrightsandthepress.syr.edu/oral_histories.html.

46 Karl Fleming, interview by Jim Pratt for the Baylor University Center for Oral History, National Symposium on the Media and the Civil Rights Movement, Archives and Special Collections, J.D. Williams Library, University of Mississippi, April 3, 1987.

47 Henry Hampton, “TV VIEW: The Camera Lens as Two-Edged Sword,” New York Times, January 15, 1989.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

50 Robert Northshield, School Audio 5-FMA-2-8209 (3-1), author transcript, Henry Hampton Collection, Washington University Film and Media Archive, St. Louis, MO.

51 Ibid.

52 Julian Bond, School Audio 5-FMA-2-8209 (3-1), author transcript, Henry Hampton Collection, Film and Media Archive, Washington University, St. Louis, MO.

53 Robert Northshield worked on Today and The Huntley-Brinkley Report. He supervised coverage of presidential elections and space coverage at NBC, created CBS News’ Sunday Morning, produced the CBS Morning News and worked briefly at ABC. Source: Jim Rutenberg, Robert J. Northshield, 78, “TV News Innovator, Dies,” New York Times, August 24, 2000.

54 Northshield, School Audio 5-FMA-2-8209 (3-1).

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 Hampton, School Audio 1-FMA2-8209 (3-1).

62 Northshield, School Audio 5-FMA-2-8209 (3-1).

63 Ibid.

64 Ibid.

65 Julian Bond, School Audio 1-FMA-2-8209 (3-1), author transcript, Henry Hampton Collection, Film and Media Archive, Washington University, St. Louis, MO.

66 Ibid.

67 Ibid.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid.

70 Northshield, School Audio 5-FMA-2-8209 (3-1).

71 Frank McGee, narrator, “The American Revolution of ’63,” NBC, September 2, 1963.

72 Hampton, School Audio 5-FMA-2-8209 (3-2).

73 Helen Epstein, “Meet Henry Hampton,” Boston Review, December 1988.

74 Northshield, School Audio 5-FMA-2-8209 (3-1).

75 Hampton, School Audio 5-FMA-2-8209 (3-1).

76 Bond, School Audio 5-FMA-2-8209 (3-2).

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid.

80 The number is estimated at 3.9 percent of working journalists, compared to 14.9 percent of the United States population in 1967, according to John W.C. Johnstone, Edward J. Slawski and William W. Bowman, The News People: A Sociological Portrait of American Journalists at Work (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1976), 26.

81 Northshield, School Audio 5-FMA-2-8209 (3-3).

82 Jackson Daily News, May 28, 1963.

83 Kathleen Wickham, We Believed We Were Immortal: Twelve Reporters Who Covered the 1962 Integration Crisis at Ole Miss (Oxford, MS: Yoknapatawpha Press, 2017).

84 (Memphis) Commercial Appeal, March 29, 1968.

85 Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).

86 Mitchell Stephens, “Television Transforms the News,” in Communication in History Technology, Culture, Society, edited by David Crowley and Paul Heyer (Boston: Pearson Education Inc. 2011), 249.

87 Henry Hampton, “TV View: The Camera Lens as Two-edged Sword,” New York Times, January 5, 1989.

88 The Commission on the Freedom of the Press, known as the Hutchins Commission, was created in 1942 by Henry R. Luce, publisher of Time, Inc., and Robert M. Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago. Hutchins selected a dozen academics to research the role of the press. The commission called for a free and independent press, among other recommendations. Louis Lyons, “A Free and Responsible Press,” Nieman Reports, April 1947, 1–3.

89 Ibid.

90 Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What’s News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek and Time (Evanston, IL.: Northwestern University Press, 2004).

91 Martin, “Making Eyes on the Prize.”

92 Else, True South.

93 Else, True South, 383.

94 Else, interview.

95 Juan Williams, My Soul Looks Back in Wonder: Voices of the Civil Rights Movement (New York: Sterling Publishing, 2005).

96 David Halberstam, “Preface,” in My Soul Looks Back in Wonder: Voices of the Civil Rights Movement, by Juan Williams (New York: Sterling Publishing, 2005), xxi.

97 Henry Hampton, “Television: teaches,” identified as draft of GBH article, n.d., Henry Hampton Collection, Film and Media Archive, Washington University, St. Louis, MO.

Additional information

Funding

Partial research funding for this project was provided by the Film and Media Archive, Washington University, St. Louis, MO.

Notes on contributors

Kathleen Wickham

Kathleen Wickham is a Professor in the School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi. She is the author of We Believed We Were Immortal: Twelve Reporters Who Covered the 1962 Integration Crisis at Ole Miss (Yoknapatawpha Press, 2017).