On July 16, Circuit Arts will screen “We Don’t See Color (1996–2013)” as part of its summer film series. This provocative episode is the fifth in the six-part “Eyes on the Prize III: We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest, 1977–2015,” which continues Henry Hampton’s groundbreaking 1987 documentary series “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement.”
Hampton’s series captures the resilience, determination, and strength of everyday people fighting for justice.
Dawn Porter, seasonal resident and summer film series executive producer, will speak after the screening with director Smriti Mundhra and Erika Dilday, executive director of American Documentary Inc. Porter, whose work is driven by a commitment to exposing injustice and celebrating the individuals who stand up against it, explains, “With ‘Eyes on the Prize III,’ we extend the timeline of the movement, showcasing grassroots activists, organizers, and community leaders from 1977 to 2015. These stories remind us that history is not static — it is a living, breathing force that continues to shape our world today.” She adds, “The original ‘Eyes’ is notable for chronicling not just the enormous civil rights victories, but also the people who fought for them. In this series, we continue that tradition, profiling the remarkable and yet little-known Americans who continue the fight for equality.”
“We Don’t See Color” explores the complexities of affirmative-action policies and how shifting demographics impacted school desegregation. Porter describes how they chose the topic: “First, we looked at some of the hot-button civil rights issues that were occurring in this period that remain relevant today. Most people, however, don’t understand the technicalities of affirmative action. It has been so demonized by some politicians that people don’t understand its various expressions. So we look at three stories through candid interviews with those directly involved in historic events.”
The film opens with Walter Cronkite reporting that the Census Bureau documented a sharp increase in Black students attending college, with background statistics showing that between 1964 and 1969, enrollment rose by 85 percent. This rise reflected the influence of affirmative action, which the federal government first implemented in 1965. The legal policy included targeted efforts in recruitment, hiring, and other areas to fix the effects of past discrimination.
Amid a backdrop of archival footage, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Cornell University, class of ’81, situates us in the positive impact of the legislation. “Before affirmative action, in the ’60s, African Americans made up less than 1 percent of all students enrolled in historically white colleges and universities.” She relates that at Cornell in the late ’70s, she learned that race was not just about prejudice, or what people think or don’t think about skin color, it was about structures and institutions.
However, this part of the documentary explains how, in 1996, Proposition 209 in California started to reverse the progress of affirmative action as well as the reasons behind its passage. One interesting point is how the leader of Proposition 209, Ward Connerly, used Martin Luther King Jr.’s words about not judging Americans by the color of their skin but by the content of their character to justify removing race as a factor in decisionmaking. He stated, “No individual made a more compelling argument that a colorblind, racially integrated nation was in America’s best moral interest.”
The second section examines those on the frontlines of two lawsuits in 2003 involving the University of Michigan’s affirmative-action admissions policy, which ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Although in the first case the court upheld the law school’s admissions policy, in the second it ruled against the university’s undergraduate admissions policy, which relied on a more formulaic point system.
The final section examines the Wake County school system in North Carolina, where demographics again played a significant role in events. Bill McNeal, Wake County Schools superintendent from 2000 to 2006, describes how by using busing to ensure well-balanced schools, they were able to make remarkable progress in raising reading and math test scores. In just seven years of its diversity program, passing scores rose from 40 percent to 80.5 percent. However, by 2007, growth in the county had become so rapid, and the number of schools had increased to such an extent, that some children were no longer assigned to their neighborhood schools, to the fury of some very vocal parents and others in the county.
Once again, the historic footage and contemporary interviews with participants at the forefront of the issue make for compelling storytelling, and bring history to life.
“The point of ‘Eyes’ is to look back,” Porter says. “To ask, ‘What have we learned?’ and to give you some of the backstories about contemporaneous issues. Rights don’t disappear overnight, usually. There’s typically a shift away from a large part of the population, for lots of reasons, against equality efforts. This is the underpinning of it. I think what’s so dangerous now is that you have this legal framework set up, but then people didn’t want to be called racist. What you have now is people dismissing that. When you add not being embarrassed when you say, ‘Your policies are going to disproportionately impact a portion of the population,’ they just don’t care. And not caring is a problem. We wanted to attack and understand the hard stuff.”
“We Don’t See Color (1996–2013)” screens on July 16 at the Grange Hall, followed by a discussion with executive producer Dawn Porter and director Smriti Mundhra, moderated by Erika Dilday, executive director of American Documentary. For more information and pay-what-you-can tickets, visit circuitarts.org/eyesontheprize.