REVIEW: In Discussing New Book 'New Prize for These Eyes,' Author Juan Williams Stays Focused on a Centrist View of Contemporary Civil Rights

On Jan. 21, Town Hall hosted Juan Williams, journalist, historian, and current political analyst for Fox News Channel. In conversation with Enrique Cerna, a self-described "recovering broadcast journalist" who has been in Seattle media for nearly 40 years, Williams sat in front of a modest audience to discuss his new book, New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement. 

New Prize is Part 2 of Williams' 1987 book Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965, and it asserts we are currently in the "dawn of a third wave/movement" of civil rights that many people don't know or speak much about. The first wave is Reconstruction, and the second is the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. According to Williams, the third wave is rooted in the election of Barack Obama in 2008, and it reached a fever pitch during the 2020 protests that resulted from the viral recording of the murder of George Floyd.   

Williams contrasts the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s-'60s and this current movement by analyzing the vast reach and influence of social media and the rise of both the alt-right and progressive movements like Black Lives Matter, and argues that 40-some years after the historic March on Washington, the civil rights movement's biggest shortcoming is that there are no major leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Responding to Cerna's question of "What is the new prize?" Wiliams pointed to Obama's election as a landmark of this new goal, "justice and equality realized." Obama's presidency roused Black Americans with the language of "hope" and a vision of a post-racial America, as opposed to past political leaders like Jesse Jackson, who spoke of disenfranchisement and disillusionment within American culture and politics to garner popular support for the past "prize" of civil rights legislation.

Williams is adamant that we must talk about race in America to advance toward the new prize. He acknowledged that the "tremendous discussion around race and DEI" would make everyone uncomfortable, but he did not clarify whether the ultimate goal of this civil rights movement is a "post-racial society" evoked by the rhetorical hope of Obama's presidency, and whether such can exist in a county built on chattel slavery and Indigenous genocide. He neglected to identify whose definition of "justice and equality realized" we are operating from. Anyone, regardless of race, having the opportunity to become the face of the American empire is a far cry from everyone having access to housing, food, education, and quality, affordable health care, basic things most marginalized people in America struggle with day to day. 

Unsurprisingly, given Williams' centrist approach and building a career on ostensibly "meeting in the middle," Williams asserts that activists who critiqued Obama's policy decisions — specifically his failure to condemn law enforcement after the murder of Trayvon Martin — are not playing "the political game." He points to their [perceived] "disengagement from [electoral] politics" as halting progress toward the new prize, because democrats losing elections cedes power to the right. Williams expressed his belief that calls for defunding the police are divisive. 

Williams went on to identify the Black Lives Matter movement's failure to retain the cross-racial solidarity and momentum that appeared in marches across the globe during the George Floyd protests (he said "more than 70% of whites believed the murder of George Floyd was unjust," yet that more minorities voted for Trump in 2024 than in 2020). He rightly pointed out that, in part thanks to social media, Trump, fascist oligarchs, and right-wing politicians have been successful at playing into the age-old anxiety of demography: "those" people are stealing our jobs and taking over the population. There was no mention of the still-burgeoning global movement against the genocide in Gaza, and how the Biden administration's ironclad military aid to Israel contributed to the failure of the Harris–Walz presidential campaign. His suggestion for achieving this new civil rights movement's goals? Centralize power and decide on and respond to a common opposition. 

Williams is adequate at identifying cultural trends and factors that have contributed to our current political landscape, and less imaginative about how to defend the basic freedoms we find disappearing right before our eyes. Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 may provide us with helpful historical context while we seek other ways to create a more grassroots, imaginative, and radical future for our communities.