Browse shows on: Leadership
ABJ is a veritable chronicle of big-city politics in a multicultural setting. From 1960 to 2000, Detroit's black community grew from 29% to 82% of the city's total population, becoming a political powerhouse that city, state, and national leaders had to court. ABJ shows highlight political leaders (especially Mayor Coleman Young, the colossus of Detroit politics during all but a few years of the existing ABJ archive), and their followers among the varied interests and neighborhoods that enlivened and complicated the city's politics.
Colored People's Time 5: "The Making of a Rioter" (December 31, 1969)Guests:
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Description: This segment examines public education in Detroit. Highlighting the unsafe infrastructures, lack of adequate resources, and substandard curriculum inner city youth grappled with everyday. The staff reporters interviews students at Northeastern High School to gain insight into their thoughts about the situation. The interview reveals the students' frustration, anger and disillusionment with a system that has all but forgotten them. The students have staged a walkout and formed a Black Student organization to address their concerns.
Colored People's Time 5 (December 31, 1969)Guests: International Gospel Choir, Black Students Association, Arthur Ashe Jr, George Kirby, Bill Murphy, Gwen McKinney, Kim Weston, Marcus Belgrave, Thomas Bowles, Diane Carol, Hal McKinney
Host : Tony Brown
Producer : Gilbert Maddox, Tony Brown
Duration: 56:53:9
Description: The program opens with Hal McKinney's jazz band performing "Freedom Jazz Dance," featuring Hal and Gwen McKinney on vocals. Although they are not individually credited, it appears that at least two prominent jazz musicians, trumpeter Marcus Belgrave and saxophonist Thomas "Beans" Bowles, are members of McKinney's band...
Colored People's Time 5: "Free Your Mind" Public Service Announcement (Skin Lightening Cream) (December 31, 1969)Guests:
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Description: One of the creative aspects of the show is the incorporation of "Public Service Announcements," that take a satirical look at Black identity. This "Free Your Mind" clip tackles the issues surrounding the use of beaching and whitening creams. Since the late 1800s Blacks who were unhappy with their skin complexion or thought they could change their social status by lighting their skin, engaged in the process of skin bleaching. Critics of the process argue that internalized racism and self-contempt have caused such individuals to accept degrading and negative images associated with Blackness, thus causing them to over identifying with Eurocentric standards of beauty. While skin whitening is one the most obvious forms of negating Blackness is discussions have also focused on hair styles, chemical process that are used to straighten hair, colored contacts, and cosmetic surgery that alters characteristically African features like the nose and lips. Skin bleaching creams are still sold and used today.
Bobby Seale (Part 1) (1978)Guests: Bobby Seale
Host : Ron Scott
Producer : Ron Scott
Duration: 0:28:20
Description: Bobby Seale was a key figure in the development of African American consciousness and radical political activism in the 1960s. Seale was one of the founders of, and an important spokesman for, the Black Panther Party. In this program from 1979, Seale talks with host Ron Scott about his role with the Black Panthers, his recently published autobiography, and his new sense of direction for the 1980s.
Bobby Seale (Part 2) (1978)Guests: Bobby Seale
Host : Ron Scott
Producer : Ron Scott
Duration: 00:29:30
Description: Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, talks with host Ron Scott about his role with the Black Panthers, his recently published autobiography, and his new sense of direction for the 1980s. This is the second part of a two part interview in 1978.
Detroit School Board (1984)Guests: Clara Rutherford, Alonzo Bates
Host : Ed Gordon
Producer : Bob Rossbach, Dianne Atkinson-Hudson
Duration: 0:28:51
Description: In the early 1980s, the Detroit Board of Education became a lightning rod for criticism over some of its financial dealings and budgetary practices. The district was under increasing pressure because of public concerns over safety in the schools and the quality of education in the district, and district officials were seeking to draw attention to inequities in school funding statewide.
Reverend Franklin (1984)Guests: C. L. Franklin, Claude Young, Martha Jean Steinberg, Erma Franklin, Robin McCoy, Fannie Tyler, The Royal Crusaders, S. L. Jones, Marlon Terrell
Host : Ben Frazier
Producer : Ed Gordon, Alicia Nails, Njia Kai
Description: This hour-long program from 1984 is divided into four segments. Three of them deal with youth-related issues or programs, but the longest and most prominent of the four is a 20-minute tribute to the Rev. C.L. Franklin, one of Detroit's most prominent and influential ministers.
Dearborn Boycott 1986 (1986)Guests: Joe Madison, Howard Simon, Arthur Featherstone
Host : Ed Gordon
Producer : Tony Mottley
Description: In 1986, a move by the Detroit suburb of Dearborn to restrict access to city parks sparked an intense controversy. Many saw this as a racist attempt to keep black Detroiters out of the predominantly white suburb. The Dearborn City Council's action prompted a legal challenge and opponents of the new ordinance organized a boycott of Dearborn businesses, particular the Fairlane Mall, which had been a very popular shopping center for black Detroiters.
Jesse Jackson (1) (1986)Guests: Jesse Jackson
Host : Ed Gordon
Producer : Ed Gordon, Carol Gibson
Duration: 0:28:47
Description: A Baptist minister, Jesse Jackson spent decades as a civil rights and community activist before a pair of campaigns for the presidency made him a prominent political figure. In this 1986 program, Jackson appears primarily in the role of minister and community activist as he and host Ed Gordon discuss the problems facing black youth in America. (A second program with Jackson, to be aired the following week, would address the situation in South Africa.)
Jesse Jackson (2) (1986)Guests: Jesse Jackson
Host : Ed Gordon
Producer : Ed Gordon, Carole Gibson
Duration: 0:28:49
Description: In the second of two consecutive programs from 1986 featuring interviews with Jesse Jackson, host Ed Gordon engages Jackson in a discussion of national politics and the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa.
Marie Farrell Donaldson (June 1986)Guests: Marie Farrell-Donaldson, Susan Watson
Host : Ed Gordon
Producer : Tony Mottley
Description: This program from June of 1986 features an interview with Detroit Ombudsman Marie Farrell-Donaldson, whose office is charged with helping citizens navigate the city's bureaucracy and help them resolve problems with city services and agencies.
Julian Bond (1987)Guests: Julian Bond
Host : Ed Gordon
Producer : Ed Gordon, Trudy Gallant
Duration: 0:28:53
Description: This program, in which host Ed Gordon interviews civil rights leader and former Georgia state legislator Julian Bond, was broadcast in January 1987 on the national observance of the Martin Luther King Holiday.
School Crisis (1987)Guests: Teola Canty, George Vaughn, Arthur Jefferson
Host : Ed Gordon
Producer : Ed Gordon, Trudy Gallant
Duration: 0:28:18
Description: This program, broadcast live in the spring of 1987, was organized by WTVS as a public forum in response to the fatal shooting of a student at a Detroit high school. The panel discussion, led by host Ed Gordon, with Detroit Schools Superintendent Dr. Arthur Jefferson, school board member George Vaughn, and PTA President Teola Canty, illuminates the struggle of a major city to come to grips with violence in its schools and broader community.
Erma Henderson (1989)Guests: Erma Henderson
Host : Trudy Gallant
Producer : Trudy Gallant
Description: This program, originally broadcast in late 1989, consists of an interview by Trudy Gallant of Detroit City Council President Erma Henderson. At the time, Henderson was preparing to leave the council after her fourth term. Henderson, who was the first black woman elected to the council and the first black person to serve as the council's president, had passed up an opportunity to run for reelection to the council to make an unsuccessful bid to be elected mayor.
Kenny Cockrel (1989)Guests: Dennis Archer, Justin Ravitz, Mike Hamlin, Jack Russell, Ken Cockrell
Host : Trudy Gallant
Producer : Gerald Smith, James Jackson
Description: Ken Cockrel was an often-controversial, often-inspirational figure in Detroit politics, from his emergence as a radical black activist and lawyer in the 1960s, through a term on the Detroit City Council, to speculation that he would run for mayor. This program, aired shortly after Cockrel's sudden death from a heart attack in 1989, explores Cockrel's contribution to the city.
Highlights of Mandela's Visit (1990)Guests: Margaret Baylor, Paul Hubbard, Susan Watson, Nelson Mandela, Emery King
Host : Trudy Gallant
Producer : Gerald Smith, James Jackson, Trudy Gallant
Duration: 00:53:01
Description: Nelson Mandela made a triumphal visit to the United States in June 1990, after his release from twenty-seven years' imprisonment in South Africa. It was a visit that brought a tremendous outpouring of emotion at every stop, especially, but not exclusively, from African Americans.
Louis Farrakhan (1990)Guests: Louis Farrakhan, Rasul Muhammad
Host : Trudy Gallant
Producer : Carlota Almanza
Duration: 0:29:35
Description: Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam has been an important and controversial leader in the African American community since the late 1970s. A powerfully charismatic speaker, he was the primary organizer of the Million Man March in 1995. While many African Americans found the Million Man March to be a deeply inspirational event, Farrakhan has also been sharply criticized for his organization's separatist ideas and for comments that many considered anti-Semitic.
General Assistance Cuts, Part 1 (1991)Guests: Maryann Mahaffey, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Joan Doyen
Host : Cliff Russell
Producer : Tony Mottley
Description: This program from the fall of 1991 is the first of two DBJ broadcasts examining one of the hot-button issues in Michigan at that time - the state's decision to balance its budget by slashing its spending on general assistance welfare.
General Assistance Cuts, Part 2 (1991)Guests: Sam Chambers, City Councilman Keith Butler, State Rep. Morris Hood, State Rep. David Hollister, State Sen. David Holmes
Host : Cliff Russell
Producer : Tony Mottley
Description: This is the second of two DBJ programs broadcast in the fall of 1991 as cutbacks in Michigan's state budget were throwing 90,000 state residents off of the general assistance welfare rolls.
Us Helping Us (1991)Guests: Richard Trice, Cheryl Coleman
Host : Lonnie Peek
Producer : Tony Mottley
Description: This broadcast from the fall of 1991 is really a continuation of the discussion in two earlier programs about the impact on welfare programs of massive budget cuts by the state of Michigan. The cuts had thrown more than 90,000 people off general assistance welfare rolls.
Election '92 (1992)Guests: George H.W. Bush, Bishop Alfred Kelly, Larry Bivens, Michael Wimberley, Bill Clinton, H. Ross Perot
Host : Cliff Russell
Producer : Tony Mottley
Description: This program, which was originally broadcast shortly before the presidential election of November 1992, examines what is at stake for African Americans in that election and how African Americans can have an impact on the political process.
Civil Rights (January 15, 1992)Guests: Ernest C. Dillard Sr
Host : Cliff Russell
Producer : Carlota Almanza
Duration: 0:26:36
Description: Russell is joined by Ernest C. Dillard, Jr., a local historian and projects manager with the UAW. He is the author of Civil Rights in the 1990s: Race at the Crossroads, and Russell starts by posing the question to him of what he means by "crossroads." Dillard believes that they are at a stage where there is the opportunity for potentially great progress, but only if they choose to do the right thing. In his book, Dillard says that blacks are on equal footing with whites legally, in terms of things such as voting rights, but there are new issues that need to be addressed. These legal rights were the result of actions such as Martin Luther King.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Tribute (1993)Guests: Coretta Scott King, Young people from Detroit and across the country
Host : Cliff Russell
Producer : Carlota Almanza
Duration: 0:29:07
Description: This program, produced to mark the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday in January 1993, is an intriguing exploration of the continuing legacy of King and his principles of nonviolence.
Jesse Jackson (3) (1995)Guests: Lois Williams, Deborah Franklin, Jesse Jackson
Host : Darryl Wood [bio]Darrell Wood hosted the show for ten years from 1988 to 1998 under the title American Black Journal. His shows sought to focus on the skills and talents of many of the nation's leading African-American business people to public television.
Click for full biography
Producer : Tony Mottley
Duration: 0:27:47
Description: This 1995 program, most of which consists of an interview of Jesse Jackson by host Darryl Wood, is fascinating because of the light it sheds on the political atmosphere of the mid 1990s.
Cornel West (1998)Guests: Cornel West
Host : Darryl Wood [bio]Darrell Wood hosted the show for ten years from 1988 to 1998 under the title American Black Journal. His shows sought to focus on the skills and talents of many of the nation's leading African-American business people to public television.
Click for full biography
Producer : Tony Mottley
Duration: 0:25:49
Description: In this program, from 1998, host Darryl Wood interviews highly regarded African American scholar Cornel West about the publication of his recently published book, "Restoring Hope: Conversations on the Future of Black America." The book explores the meaning of community for African Americans and ideas for building a more hopeful future through a series of interviews with important public figures, such as Maya Angelou, Harry Belafonte, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Bill Bradley and Wynton Marsalis.
John Conyers (2000)Guests: John Conyers
Host : Darryl Wood [bio]Darrell Wood hosted the show for ten years from 1988 to 1998 under the title American Black Journal. His shows sought to focus on the skills and talents of many of the nation's leading African-American business people to public television.
Click for full biography
Producer : Tony Mottley
Duration: 0:25:40
Description: In this program, broadcast in 2000, host Darryl Wood interviews U.S. Rep. John Conyers on a number of related topics. Woods questions Conyers on the changing focus of civil rights issues in the United States and efforts to win congressional approval for slavery reparations legislation. The interview offers valuable insights into the nation's shifting debate over civil rights issues at the turn of the century.
