Alison Stewart: This is All of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. In 1987, the late filmmaker Henry Hampton released the seminal civil rights documentary series titled Eyes on the Prize. Part one followed the United States through 1954 to 1965, the civil rights years. Part two focused on leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and Fred Hampton. Now, a new generation of filmmakers have continued his legacy with a look at activism between the years of 1977 to 2017. The latest installment is titled Eyes on the Prize III: We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest.

Building upon its predecessor, the six part series follows the aftermath of the civil rights movement. It spotlights community demands for access to fair housing through the late '70s, fight for healthcare access in the wake of the HIV and AIDS epidemic of the '80s, the work of South Central LA organizers following the 1992 Rodney King riots, and the environmental movements of the 21st century.

A review in The Hollywood Reporter calls the series an emotional, inspiring, and righteously angry series of vignettes that look backward while very clearly intending to reflect upon and instigate conversations about our fraught current moment. Eyes on the Prize III is streaming now on Max. Joining us to discuss the series is executive producer Dawn Porter. Hi, Dawn, welcome back.

Dawn Porter: Hi, Alison. Great to be here. Thanks for having us.

Alison Stewart: We're also joined by filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir, who directed the first episode of Eyes on the Prize titled America, Don't Look Away (1977 to 1988). Geeta, welcome.

Geeta Gandbhir: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: Dawn, a lot of people remember you. You've done so many films, including Good Trouble about John Lewis. How did you keep the spirit of Henry Hampton's original version of Eyes on the Prize with the series?

Dawn Porter: That was very much top of mind for all of us. Eyes on the Prize is such an important piece of work in our filmography, in our collective historical memory. We kind of set forth a few kind of guide rules for ourselves. One was that we were going to look back, we weren't going to address the current political situation. Part of what Eyes did is it was, as you said, released in the '80s, but it was looking back to the civil rights movement from the 1950s to the 1960s in the first series, and so what we did is a look back.

The second thing we did is Henry had teams of filmmakers work on each episode. I wanted to kind of honor that spirit. Each of the six hours in Eyes III, which is our series, is directed by a different person. Then the third thing, which was extremely important, is Eyes was really a celebration and an understanding of what ordinary people did to advance civil rights.

John Lewis was not famous when he started his quest. It was examining-- Martin Luther King is not the big-- it's not the King story in the '60s. It's the story of the other people who were doing work for the greater good, for the greater good of minorities. We also honored that. We were looking for those stories of people who were advancing civil rights and the culture in the period that we are looking at.

Alison Stewart: Geeta, let's bring you into the conversation. Your episode is America, Don't Look Away (1977 to 1988). It focuses on grassroots activism in Philadelphia and the South Bronx in the '70s and the '80s. In the '70s, the Bronx was burning. What did you want to investigate about why the Bronx was burning?

Geeta Gandbhir: I think it was incredibly important for us to look into, as you mentioned and as Dawn said, the sort of unsung heroes of both these locations and these time periods. The Bronx was such a travesty of justice. That was happening again. It was front page news at the time. It was a sort of, again, a microcosm of what was happening to folks who were economically vulnerable around the country, but yet there was sort of a powerlessness to stop it because, again, it was insurance companies, it working or not working, but being manipulated by landlords. There was the government that sort of turned a blind eye to the folks who were living in the Bronx at that time.

Again, we wanted to understand why, but we also really wanted to bring to the forefront the people on the ground who stood up and refused to allow their community to be demolished, even though it seemed like an impossible task. Again, these were local folks who, against all odds, who reclaimed the community. I think an important thing to note is that for every episode of Eyes deals with a different-- there's a topical issue.

For example, mine is housing and healthcare, and then the other episodes go on to deal with other really significant issues that still, again, are things that we struggle with or where progress has been made or not made in our community. For us, the Banana Kelly episode, Banana Kelly being the organization that came together at that time to fight back and reclaim buildings and create a cooperative housing society in the Bronx, they were-- again, that was the housing. We were looking at housing, and housing equity and equality in that episode.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to a clip from your episode. This is community activist Carol Waring explaining what the community was like in the South Bronx back in the '70s and the early '80s. It's talking a little bit about the Banana Kelly Cooperative. This is from Eyes on the Prize III.

Carol Waring: Kelly Street was always a family place. For one, we never locked our doors. If you were late or couldn't pay your rent, you got a rent party throw for you, and people would donate to help you pay your bills.

Interviewee 1: I'd go to their house and eat one day, they'd come to my house and eat another day. We played together up and down the streets every day. Our parents went to work together.

Interviewee 2: Older people were never isolated and alone. They were always taken care of.

Interviewee 3: If the kids did something on, let's say, Tiffany Street, Ms. Jones on Tiffany street was calling Ms. Mabel on Kelly Street, and they would watch your child. It was very common for the other mothers to spank your kids, too. They would beat your kids if they saw their kid doing something wrong, and then you would go home and tell and you would get another one, because that's just the way it was. It was a village.

Alison Stewart: Geeta, what's a common misconception that people have about the Bronx at this time?

Geeta Gandbhir: I think the Bronx, at this time, and this is something we tried to showcase in the way that the story was told. Again, it was this vibrant community that had built its own social networks to care for each other. They were deeply interconnected and supportive of one another. I think, however, they were, again, more and more being seen by the political powers that be as a community that was not important. Again, it was an impoverished community, but there were many immigrants there that had come from Puerto Rico. It was a Black and Brown community.

Again, it was marginalized and deeply marginalized and forgotten. Again, in the society that we live in, this is a microcosm of what was happening then and what continues to be an issue today. You really see, again, the local folks stepping up at that time. What's interesting is Jimmy Carter walked those streets in the '70s and the late '70s and saw opportunity, whereas Reagan came in later. It was a very different-- I know, took a very different tactic with the folks from the Bronx.

Alison Stewart: Dawn, how does the activism that we see in the South Bronx compare to other movements in other parts of the country during the same era?

Dawn Porter: I love that question so much. I think what we saw across all of the episodes, and there is some time overlap, is we see consistent stories of people taking matters into their own hands in a productive way. In episode five, we see people who are fighting book banning and who are not letting a school board kind of overtake the educational system. Reverend Barber played a huge part in that story in North Carolina. In episode four, we see people fighting large chemical companies that are polluting.

What's so interesting to me is, although we are doing this look back, so many of these issues are resonating today. I'm so grateful to HBO for giving us these six hours to do this, because right now, while we're in a period where people are trying to erase history or falsify it, these stories will stand and they will be here forever, and people will continue to speak and to fight and to organize.

I think this gives a lesson that is very resonant today, which is, and John Lewis used to say this all the time, there is always something that we can do. Some efforts are large, some are smaller, but there is always something that you can do, and you should never feel hopeless. I think that's what all of these stories show us, is people figuring it out for themselves.

Alison Stewart: We're talking about the latest installment of the landmark civil rights series Eyes on the Prize. It explores activism from 1977 to 2017. Executive producer Dawn Porter and filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir are joining me to discuss the series, which is streaming now on Max. Geeta, part of your episode, the Bronx part of it, it talks about people's efforts to rebuild these abandoned buildings. What was the main incentive for people to use their own resources to remodel these buildings?

Geeta Gandbhir: I think it's really important to note that this was a-- again, this is a community. People did not want to leave. There's a really powerful quote that at the end of sort of the Bronx section that we felt was really important, that a neighborhood is not buildings, it is not structures, it is not streets. A neighborhood is people, and a community is people. I think what we saw in the Bronx is that the community loved where they lived, and again, they loved the culture of the Bronx.

Harry Derienzo, who's one of the folks in the film who did not grow up in the Bronx but came from Long island, also fell in love with the community because of the interconnectedness, because of the social networks, because of how they took care of each other. Again, this vibrant life where elderly people and children were looked after, right? I think, again, this rich community, it wasn't that they wanted to leave. Nobody leaves home unless they are forced to.

I think the conclusion they came to is, again, no one's coming to save us. Carol says this, "No one's coming to save us. We have to save ourselves." That's sort of the mantra, I think, in each of these episodes that you see is these unsung heroes doing it for themselves. I think, as Dawn said, just to echo her, it's an incredible lesson from activists throughout time and something that can really, hopefully, inspire people today that there is a way forward against the impossible, but again, we have to be the ones to step up and take action.

Alison Stewart: Dawn, the series, it blends archival footage with modern day interviews. Why do you think this enhances the storytelling?

Dawn Porter: I think archival footage, I think what we're trying to do as filmmakers is show, not tell. It is so powerful to see people organizing, to see people being supported, and also to see people being joyful. These people, they're motivated by a serious problem, but there is such a spark of joy. Thinking of in episode four, where communities were suffering from cancer and from all of these terrible effects of environmental pollution. One of the women says, "We looked at each other. We said we can do this." That kind of imagination and hope, that spreads to other things. Once you feel powerful, it is hard. That sense of power transfers to other parts of your life.

We have people who were there at the time and we're interviewing them for their look back about how significant these movements were. Then you get to see them and their younger selves. There's an episode about the Million Man March and about how hard it was for that to come together and all the fears. We have Reverend Al Sharpton, who was in the thick of advocacy then, and he talks about being kind of admonished by his elders who told him, "Do not embarrass us."

I think sometimes it's hard for people to imagine how you get something started, how you get it going, how you continue it, how you pull it off. In each of these episodes, you see all of those steps. I think the series reinforces this idea. We all do have these skills, and the collective is really, really so powerful.

Alison Stewart: Our last moments, Geeta, I'm curious, what piece of archival footage has really stayed with you?

Geeta Gandbhir: I mean, there's so much within it, but I do have to say, the images of the Bronx at that time. There's some beautiful film that that was taken. Again, I believe it's like 16 millimeter film maybe that was taken at that time. It shows the Bronx as it was and the culture and the community. Again, the street party that happened with the DJs that they would have the kind of joyful, vibrant spirit of the Bronx. The Bronx, again, it's a cultural hub. So much came out of the Bronx. We have hip hop, we have poetry.

Again, the Bronx is such a critical part of American culture. I think we obviously have-- there's the Yankee Stadium. There's so much. I think that that footage from the time that really shows you what that neighborhood was like is so beautiful. It's also so relatable. I think, oftentimes, communities that are economically vulnerable are marginalized and sort of stigmatized. You really see this joyful place and a neighborhood, again, comprised of people that deserved just the basic human rights that we all deserve, which is safe, equitable housing. I think that that really stayed with me.

Alison Stewart: Want to dive in here. Eyes on the Prize III: We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest. The series is on Max now. My guests have been Dawn Porter and Geeta Gandbhir. Thank you for your time today.

Dawn Porter: Thanks so much for having us. It was really fun.

Geeta Gandbhir: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: There's more All of It on the way.