Ep 2. Fighting Back - 1957-1962

In the second episode of the first season of Eyes on the Prize, titled Fighting Back - 1957-1962, the focus shifts to the period of civil rights struggle after the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that desegregated schools across the United States. The episode covers the first wave of resistance by African Americans against legal segregation in the South, and their efforts to fight back against entrenched racism.

The episode begins with the crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas, where Governor Orval Faubus defied federal orders to desegregate Central High School and called out the National Guard to block the enrollment of nine black students. This act of defiance by the governor galvanized the civil rights movement, and the episode follows the efforts of activists like Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine to demand equal rights and justice.

From Little Rock, the episode moves to Montgomery, Alabama, where Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. Parks' arrest sparked a year-long boycott of the city's buses by African Americans, led by a young preacher named Martin Luther King Jr. King, who had just moved to Montgomery to pastor the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, emerged as a leader of the boycott and helped to organize a successful legal challenge to the city's segregation laws.

The episode also covers the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) by young activists in North Carolina, who used sit-ins at segregated lunch counters to demand equal treatment. This effort soon spread to other cities in the South, and the episode follows the escalating tension and violence that erupted as white citizens and police officers sought to block the protests.

Overall, Fighting Back is a powerful exploration of the early days of the civil rights movement, when ordinary people banded together to demand justice and equality in the face of institutionalized racism and oppression. The episode features gripping archival footage and insightful interviews with key figures from the era, creating a vivid portrait of a tumultuous time in American history.