Martin Luther King stands with Coretta Scott King, his wife.
Thursday, Nov. 12
WILLIAMSTOWN - With our first black president in the White House, it would seem that the Civil Rights movement has finally cleared the way to equality. But there are still obstacles in the road to ending the racism that winds through American history.

Three years ago, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice in partnership with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the National Urban League launched a program to investigate aging unsolved violent crimes from the Civil Rights era.

"We will do everything we can to close those cases and to close this dark chapter in our nation's history," then FBI Director Robert S. Mueller said when the program began. " Protecting the civil rights of all Americans is one of the FBI's highest missions, whether the violations occurred four days ago or 40 years ago."

This month, Williams College is hosting a documentary film series that covers all of the major events of the Civil Rights movement including some of those violations that resulted in tragedy. The showing of films from the 14-part series, which originally aired on PBS in 1987, continues at Images Cinema through Monday . " Eyes on the Prize," produced by Blackside, Inc, and narrated by Julian Bond, documents the struggle to end discrimination and segregation and showcases some of the ordinary people who worked to turn the tide in American history. The program being

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is sponsored by the Williams College Department of History, Africana Studies, the Multi- Cultural Center, and Claiming Williamstown.

Leslie Brown, who teaches Approaching the Past: Documentary Practices, arranged to show the films. She explained that her course is "participatory and collaborative" - students learn in nontraditional ways and develop documentary skills with hands-on projects such as oral histories. Documenting history through photographs, narratives, folklore, films, fiction, music, poetry, art and other forms, provides ways for audiences to access stories that would go otherwise go untold.

Showing the films is a way of making the Civil Rights movement relevant to her students, Brown said. Students from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts have been invited to view and discuss the films, and the showings are free and open to the public.

The series began in October with Fighting Back" (1957-1962), the battle to integrate Little Rock's Central High School and James Meredith's challenge to segregation at the University of Mississippi, and "Ain't Scared of Your Jails", ( 1960- 1961) which documents black college students leading lunch counter sit-ins.

Two special guests, film producer Judy Richardson and activist Charles Cobb, spoke to the audience after the Oct.26 showing of " Mississippi: Is This America?" ( 1963- 1964). Both were part of the grassroots movement when college students traveled to Mississippi to register voters. Three of those young activists were brutally murdered soon after they arrived by Ku Klux Klan members.

Cobb and Richardson said that while the freedom struggle has been going on since the beginning of the country, what was unique about the movement in the sixties the initiative and leadership of young people at the center of the action.

" The Civil Rights sit- ins showed what youth could do," said Richardson.

Cobb added, "the old tradition of organizing in the black community enabled Martin Luther King to emerge."

The next episode in the series, " Time Has Come" ( 1964- 66), tells the story of the movement's call from Freedom Now! to Black Power! through the leadership of Malcolm X, Stokely Charmichael and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. "Power!" ( 1966- 68) shows how " black power" began to influence changes in education and politics.

Monday, Images will end its series with three more episodes, beginning at 7 p.m.

"The Promised Land" (196768) covers the period when Martin Luther King became a respected spokesperson and leader of the movement ends with his assassination in 1968.

"Ain't Gonna Shuffle No More" ( 1964-1972) chronicles the growing power of the movement and the influence of leaders like Muhammad Ali.

"A Nation of Law?" (19681971) looks at the Black Panther party at a time when violence rose and federal law enforcement agencies struck out against black activism. Two Black Panther leaders were killed in Chicago, and a five-day takeover at Attica Prison left fortythree inmates dead.

This landmark series of historical footage and contemporary interviews reminds us of how much we need to remember and how much we still have to learn.