Browse shows on: Sports and Entertainment
As the era of segregated entertainment and culture came to an end, black youth were offered visions of escape from ghetto life by rags-to-riches stories of famous actors, sports heroes, and entertainers. Mass communications amplified this trend and exploited the gladiatorial, masculine culture of professional sports and popular entertainment to reach an economically-influential segment of African-American youth. ABJ interviewees from this sector discussed their controversial position as role models for urban black males.
Colored People's Time 13 (1968)Guests: Inkster Community Choir, Lorenzo Wright, The Brothers of Soul, Martha Jean, Wild Bill Davis, Stokely Carmichael, John Lewis, John Conyers
Host : Tony Brown
Producer : Gilbert Maddox, Tony Brown
Duration: 01:01:04
Description: This program from the fall of 1968 is interesting for a variety of reasons. It's wide-ranging content mix of news, music, fashion, theater and cultural commentary offers fascinating insight into the concerns and interests of Detroit's African American community of the period. In addition, it provides an enlightening example of local television production style in the late 1960s. Moreover, the program is remarkable for the number of cast and crew members who went on to notable careers in the mass media and academia.
Colored People's Time 13: "Free Your Mind" Public Service Announcement ("Two Selves") (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 explores the complexity of integrating ones public and private identities. Essentially, at the heart of the message is the idea that Black Americans may feel that in order to succeed in the corporate America they must assimilate and either imitate or adapt Eurocentric characteristics. It is only in private, among family and friends, that the ethic identity can be fully embraced. The clip challenges viewers to question if the two selves can ever be fully reconciled and brought together. Thus achieving professional success while still being true to one's ethic identity.
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.
Eartha Kitt (1978)Guests: Eartha Kitt
Host : Ron Scott
Producer : Tony Mottley
Description: In a sometimes emotional interview, legendary singer, dancer and actress Eartha Kitt talks with host Ron Scott about her career, her personal philosophy, and the professional price she paid for her political honesty.
Ossie Davis (1980)Guests: Ossie Davis
Host : Gene Elzy
Producer : Deborah Ray
Duration: 0:28:55
Description: This features an interview with actor Ossie Davis about his career and his upcoming PBS television series, "Ossie and Ruby," which he has created with his wife, actress Ruby Dee.
Stevie Wonder: A Motown Legacy (1980)Guests: Ted Hull, Ester Gordy Edwards, Stevie Wonder
Host : Gene Elzy
Producer : Tony Mottley
Duration: 00:29:41
Description: This program, from very early in 1980, is an exploration of the career and music of Stevie Wonder, who joined Motown Records at age 12 and soon became one of the record label's most popular and successful recording stars.
Dick Gregory (1981)Guests: Dick Gregory, Barbra Tracey
Host : Paul Clements
Producer : Deborah Ray
Description: This program from 1981 is an unusual example of the range of programs represented in the Detroit Black Journal series. Less polished and focused than many of the other programs in the series, it nevertheless confronts a serious issue - the Atlanta Child Killings - that was of intense interest to African Americans, at the time.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee (1989)Guests: Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Host : Trudy Gallant
Producer : Tony Mottley
Description: Jackie Joyner-Kersee was one of the most successful women athletes of the 20th century, winning a total of five Olympic medals in track and field events spread over four consecutive Olympic Games. The peak of her Olympic career was in 1988, when she won gold medals in both the heptathlon and the long jump.
Urban City Gambling (1993)Guests: Rev. E.D. Cobbin, Theo Broughton, Ted Gatzaros
Host : Cliff Russell
Producer : Tony Mottley
Description: Casino gambling roiled the political waters of Detroit for nearly a quarter century before the city's first casino opened in 1999. This program, from mid-1993, illustrates the intensity of the debate that raged in the early 1990s over whether casinos should be allowed in Detroit.
Chris Webber (March 1, 1993)Guests: Chris Webber
Host : Cliff Russell
Producer : Tony Mottley
Description: In this program from March 1, 1993, host Cliff Russell devotes the entire program to an extended interview with Chris Webber, then a key leader of the University of Michigan's "Fab Five" basketball team. Webber went on to a long and successful career in the National Basketball Association, where he played for at least five different teams, including the Detroit Pistons.
Arthur Mitchell (1994)Guests: Arthur Mitchell
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: 00:27:47
Description: In this program, from 1994, host Darryl Wood interviews Arthur Mitchell, founder of the Dance Theater of Harlem. Mitchell was in Detroit to launch a youth dance program in conjunction with the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts.
