Eyes on the Prize- Izzy

Something I found very moving from Eyes on the Prize, in a sad way, was the flat out ignorance by southerners of the moral wrongs committed by whites upon blacks. The fact that hundreds of thousands of people were not only able to look away from the monstrosities, but could sometimes justify them, is a horrendous thought. The movie really did show some graphic images of this happening. The most prevalent one to me was the video from the first day of school for the Little Rock Nine. The students were harassed while trying to enter school, the mobs were horrendous to them. They did nearly everything but physically hurt them, and the images of it in the movie really showed me how terrible some people were. They were doing everything in their power to stop these kids from entering the school, and tried to justify their reasoning as well. If this was to happen today, the whole world would look at it as a terrible hate crime, but back then, it was seen by most of Arkansas and the south as a perfectly fair way to demonstrate their hate and keep the races apart. Another image of hate and ignorance of hate were the reactions of the Emmett Till killing. The south didn’t really seem to care for the incident, and I’m sure not many people were surprised when Milam and Bryant were cleared. The fact that people could look upon that situation and its outcome and simply shrug and say that it all ended up alright disgusts me. Eyes on the Prize really did show me the horrifics of the civil rights movement and moved me in the sense of showing me how hard it was on people.