. . . . . .

. . .

horrible summer in selma alabama and movement leaders would charge between cops and demonstrators saying it's not going to work. you have to talk people down and it was a great, name howard who

had influence on henry and he talked about revolutionary patience that it took to employ nonviolence. the other piece of muscle that people forget is the music. the two things that police could not overcome was nonviolence and freedom songs, it drove them crazy. drove them to the state line and dumped them out because he said, i couldn't stand their singing. [laughter] you mentioned a fellow name robert williams. it's interesting. i would rof to hear what's not in a documentary, what got left out of this series and a lot of things that got left out from the eyes in the press. in the decade that we covered there were literally thousands

of actions and thousands of small cities and in the north also. henry had to choose 12 battles, 12 iconic battles. those are the ones that were in there. the events of saint augustine, florida, the rage on blacks swimming in the same lake. robert williams who organized veterans in deacons for defense and they were armed. they had, you know, m-1 rifles, steel helmets, fox holes and they fought back with gunfire against the ku kluz klan. robert williams was arrested, he actually fled the country and went to cuba, lived in cuba in

exile for probably 20 years. henry was in a top position because he knew perfectly well that the potential for armed resistance was there. he knew also that very often our meet negotiation the south were actually -- they were actually armed guards, not visible but the white community knew they were there. henry was faced with a problem. this was the first series about civil rights and henry felt it was critical that all americans see this and that this be accessible and really learn something from this and he made a tactical or strategic decision, he was not going to talk about self-defense or robert williams in that first series. we did six shows which eyes in the prize won which is the nonviolent movement and then eyes two.

it talks a lot about armed rebellion. that's a long answer to a simple question. >> thank you. >> on that note, you said that making eyes was harder, can you say anything about that? >> yeah, they are one hour each and henry had to get the first one, the good movement. the one that we know, rosa parks and it's dr. king's, you know, i have a dream speech and it took us up through 1965, selma, the great hinge and the passing of the voting rights act. henry insisted that at the end of the program when lynden

johnson signs and democracy is a complicated thick, we did the series that went from 1950 to 1980. a black organization, spoke with michael and everybody went nuts, you know. black nationalism rose, malcolm x, we had not done malcolm x in eyes one. the panthers black nationalism, affirmative action, you know,

that was, you know, it was all a much more complicated history. it was all much more difficult to fund. fire hoses in birmingham and people getting beat up in the bridge in selma. that was very tough. there were a few, lotus software development gets a big shot-out. they developed spreadsheet developers, they stood up and they did it. on eyes two there was not a single corporate underwriter, it was all public money and bill kospi, interestingly enough he and his wife gave a lot of money and gave a party in their townhouse and raised a whole bunch of money for us. i don't know if that answer it is question.

>> why do you think -- why wasn't corporate funding in eyes two? was it like a shift? >> it's interesting you say that in 2017 when -- eyes two or eyes one? >> there seems to be a shift in the source of funding. >> even eyes one was 80% public funding and 80% public and foundation. on eyes two, if you're general motors, in 1989 did you want to have corporate logo on malcolm x . there were rebellions and riots. general electric is not going to put its logo on that. it was interesting that has

changed and now particularly with the era of the sort of the golden age of the decade from 1955 to '65, golden age of civil rights. people are more than happy, corporations -- we were in -- we interviewed rosa parks. henry was determined to overturn the myth of the tired seamstress who decided to disrupt segregation. that woman had been a fierce activists for 20 years before that happened. she had been kicked off buses and arrested and worked with the

scottsbefore orphan rrch orphan urch grch hrch boys and organizing effort in alabama. henry was keen to bring the local organization ers to the fore front. we interviewed her in detroit and she was great. she's very soft spoken, you couldn't imagine. this was the like the face that lost a thousand ships, you know. on the side of the bus was this giant picture of rosa parks and an apple logo and it said think different. [laughter] did they have any idea? somebody had a great idea and a month later a bus with césar chávez and a bus with dolly

lama. do they have -- do they really know what these people are about or pay to license the image. no one ever put malcolm x in a think different bus. [laughter] >> so where was i going? that's why there was no corporate logo. it was interesting to see what the new leverage for change may be. that pager was corporate sponsors, one of them was chase bank, i thought, wow. chase bank at sundance. i thought, wow, this is -- maybe there's something happening here. anyhow, it's too long an answer. what else?

yeah. >> so we are a generation out from -- >> yeah. >> henry's notion that these stories should be revisited every generation, if you were funded and if you were to remaining the series, how would you feel different as you look at the civil rights history? >> i would ask you, i've been there and done that, it doesn't need to be remade the same way. i don't know that i'm the one to figure out how to make it. what henry would say, these young folks that came through blacks side, you figure out how to do it. it's interesting to look at the academy award nominations. four of those films are by african-american directors and three of them are from some variation about the african-american experience and broadly defined the civil rights

struggle, oj made in america. it's witnesses and archives footage. it's a very simple spare pallet. the astonishing wonderful kind of anarchy of style loaded up with graphics and has all kinds of music and interviews and dolly shots, wonderful third golden age of addressing same issues. i'm not your negro, a film about james baldwin. uses its own words on driving force. i welcome all of that and i hope that all new kinds of devices can be use today retail the stories. if you look at music as litmus test for how the stories are told differently, in eyes one,

one of the eyes two producers recently told me, it was like preachers telling neglect story. it was all church songs and freedom songs. in ice two, it's hip-hop, rap, marvin gay, that's very deliberate to telegraph that the movement changed from being a church-base movement to being a much more secular movement. henry hated rap and couldn't stand it. he hated hip-hop, he never came around to it. where am i going? it has to be done differently by each new generation, i don't know if that answers the question or not. >> in the civil rights leaders and top activists putting these things together, did you ever pick up a feeling from these leaders, church, et cetera, that they think they thought break the back of jim crowe starts in

the 50's? was there ever a sense that they thought this could be done relatively quickly like apartheid in africa. all the experts thought it would never go that fast. >> that's an interesting question. i was not aware that any of the people in the movement, either that i knew in the south or that we interviewed wherever seriously troubled by doubt that this was achievable. it was so -- so right, you know, we were talking with orlando bag well yesterday and he said you can't be confused about whether this is right or not. what is interesting, we talk about apartheid. we made eyes on the prize during last days and every day we saw news coming out of johannesburg and henry, you know, he was the first to point out to me that

the citizens of south africa were not citizens of south africa, the black citizens, black south africans were not citizens of their own nation. i can't speak for the people that i worked with in the south or other people in the eyes in the prize, my guess is what sustained people is that no matter how things -- rough things got in alabama if you were a black march e or protestor or ordinary person, you knew that you could leap-frog over the mad dog sheriff, crazy character and you could finally get people in washington, the president, the congress, you get them to notice and i think that for me was a sustaining understanding. yeah, i don't know if that answer it is question but that's

my sense of things. hi, judy. [laughter] >> did you change the perspective on the series that you made? >> yeah. well, "the new york times" said it's 75 pages too long and i don't know exactly what 75 page he's talking about. at the -- i think it's a few changes too long. [laughter] >> what i learned. well, management matters. we have institutions in this country and in our world, our documentary community, we have institution that is we really need that really have to, you know, they're incredibly important and they serve documentary-making, i like to think they serve america and those institutions have to live

on and black side did not live on, black side was turning out great work at the same time as earl morrison, kim burns was just getting going and black side alone sank beneath the waves and the reason i wrote those 75 pages was based on having to talked with an awful lot of people and when i was there, i was sort of commuting in and out and i was shooting commercials and working with drew and i could afford to maybe miss a paycheck now and then and it was only when i interviewed a lot of -- i did about 150 interviews for the book, i began to understand the depth of frankly of anger because people got caught -- people worked at black side, the interns and the society producers and editors,

they were in henry hamptons, big enchilada jet eye. we were also in the thraul -- civil rights movement. we were hampton hostages, we used to say. we were paying for every serious from money from the next series and when henry died there was no next series so the whole thing collapsed. this was a round about saying that what i learned, i had a new appreciation for the need for good management. i know that sounds incredibly unglamorous and it's not like the fire hoses and getting arrested for voter registration, i think it's in some ways equally important. hi, zach.

>> what did you learn about the movement while working on the series that you didn't know perhaps or wasn't in clear focus . >> we spend our lives getting paid to learn about great stuff. that -- what i learned was how complicated the movement was. when i was working in mississippi and in georgia i was like a spec, i was the lowest-level grunt, foot soldier and i saw only a tinny slice particularly in mississippi, i saw a little bit of what was going on in rural county in mississippi and it wasn't until i went to work for henry that i began to realize how messy it all was. i was aware when i was in the south of the rivalries and we

use today ridicule a bunch of boy scouts and preachers. but the -- the -- just the complication of those organizations, snick, local organizers, the complication of all of it and trying to figure out which lever to pull to get change happen. you have a crazy flamboyantly guy in birmingham. bull connor. how do we prevent bill connor to notice? unless you can bark in a way that appeals to a higher civil

power, whether it's the statement government or federal government. henry really opened my eyes of how incredibly that was. we did interviews with people inside the -- the johnson administration. we did -- i interviewed nicholas who was the attorney general under johnson and he was -- i mean, i had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. it was during the events in selma where the movement had turgted clark. they knew they had a lead actor, lead bad guy, throughout that whole year of work in selma, the justice department, they were drafting a constitutional amendment about voting rights. i was in selma, looking at jim, i had no idea that was going on behind the scenes.

>> did we answer all the questions? >> maybe sort to wrap up, john spent six hours this morning from 5:30 in the morning doing radio interviews, so -- [laughter] >> let me speak to that. [laughter] >> when you make a movie you finish the film and you click play, like it goes. [laughter] >> when you're -- this is fun being in city lights with you guys but when you write a book, that's when -- it's after the book is published that the work starts. they do this thing called radio tour. if you ever write a book, i hope you do, they are going to ask you to do radio tour. radiotory is your phone rings at 5:00 a.m. in the morning and producer in new york and they cycle you through radio stations 20 minutes at a time live for the next five hours and you have

to be like, you know, the percy novelist or author and every talk show host is going to exact sc you exactly the same questions that the publicist and publisher sent. you have to do the work. [inaudible] >> i began written the book when obama was reelected by a huge margin. the day it went to the printer is when donald trump was elected . toward equity, voting rights.

the legacy of dr. king slams up to the legacy of george wallace. it's interesting, all of the talk show people want to know what the relevance to today is. you know, plenty of people who said an awful lot about today. my only thing i would add to it is an operating manual for organizers. you know, there are a lot of progressive and social movement that died because all the story tellers died and they didn't get carried on, henry felt that, you know, this was not about a bunch of laws back then. this was not about how you make change in 1960's, this is how you make change any time. i think it's a longer discussion, a lot to have levers that we were able to identify in the 1960's are now broken.