An Essay Concerning the Civil Rights Film Eyes on the Prize

Ethnic relations in America have a history of injustice and prejudice. African Americans have faced discrimination, in the United States, based on their race for centuries. They have endured centuries of inferiority to white Americans. African Americans were brought to America by force and then enslaved. In the 1950's and 1960's, African Americans began America's second revolution, the Civil Rights Movement. They began to stand up for their rights and fight against their mistreatments by white Americans. The film, Eyes on the Prize, is a documentary of African Americans fight, in the south, against the white man's prejudice.

African Americans have struggled for years to achieve the same equal rights and opportunities as white Americans. Ethnic groups have common cultural characteristics that separate them from others within a given population. The film, Eyes on the Prize, portrays the struggle of a specific ethnic group, African Americans, within the American population. Racism refers to explicit beliefs in racial supremacy such as before the civil rights movement in the United States. Eyes on the Prize shows racism in the United States.

African Americans were segregated from white Americans in almost every aspect of society. They had to use different bathrooms, wait in different waiting rooms, and their children even had to go to different schools than white children. This is an example of institutional racism.

African Americans began to fight back against racism and win. As seen in Eyes on the Prize, May 17, 1954 was a major win for African Americans. In the case of Brown versus the Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled segregating schools was unconstitutional. This was a huge blow in the foundations of "institutional racism."

The Brown case showed that African Americans had a friend in the Supreme Court. In September 1955, a young boy named Emitt Till was murdered, for talking to a white woman, in Alabama. There was a trial and the defendants were found not guilty. However, this was an example of how African Americans were fighting back against racial inequality.

They all stood together to try and find justice for this young boy. Another example of an entire African American population of a city standing together is the bus boycotts in Alabama, as seen in Eyes on the Prize. Led by Martin Luther King Jr, the entire black population of Montgomery, Alabama refused to ride the public bus system. It all started with a black woman, Rosa Parks, refusing to give up her seat to a white man. This fight also proved to be successful for African Americans. The Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was illegal.

Through their struggles African Americans have gained many rights, which white Americans have enjoyed for centuries. However, the American society is far from having equality. African Americans still face discrimination to this day. Many other ethnic groups face discrimination in American also. Mexicans, Asians, Cubans, and Latinos all face discrimination based on their race. Eyes on the Prize focuses on the struggle of blacks in American society in the 1960's. Undertones of this racism are still present in society today. Racism was embedded in the structure and operation of society. Today I believe it is most prevalent in the American culture.