Shows Airing From 1990s
Guests:
Louis Farrakhan, Rasul Muhammad
Host :
Trudy Gallant
Producer :
Carlota Almanza
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.
Guests:
Margaret Baylor, Paul Hubbard, Susan Watson, Emery King, Nelson Mandela
Host :
Trudy Gallant
Producer :
Gerald Smith, James Jackson, Trudy Gallant
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.
Guests:
Lavelle Williams, Bill (George Martin) Black
Host :
Trudy Gallant
Producer :
Tony Mottley
Description: In early 1990, the city of Detroit was facing a major budget crisis. Concerns about the city's finances, which had barely surfaced during the mayoral election in October and November of 1989, had suddenly erupted into an $80 million budget shortfall that prompted Mayor Coleman Young to propose drastic cutbacks in city services.
Guests:
Ray Jenkins, Christopher Alston
Host :
Trudy Gallant
Producer :
Tony Mottley
Description: In early 1865, shortly before the end of the Civil War, General William T. Sherman began distributing parcels of land confiscated from Confederate supporters to former slaves along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. He also loaned army mules to the former slaves to help them farm their newly acquired land.
Guests:
Diane Campbell, Tina Brooks, Lisa Page, Witness, Keith Staten, Yolanda Harris
Host :
Trudy Gallant
Producer :
Carlota Almanza
Description: This program from December 1990 is a Christmas special devoted to gospel music. Host Trudy Gallant introduces two contemporary gospel music acts: a women's quartet known as Witness and solo performer Keith Staten.
Guests:
Fr. George Clements, Deacon Reginald Dokes, Rev. Jim Holley, Rev. Ron Spann, Mother Gertrude Stacks
Host :
Deborah Smith-Barney
Producer :
Tony Mottley
Description: This program from the early fall of 1991 features a panel discussion with leaders from four Detroit churches to examine the question of what churches are - and need to be - doing to help young people with the struggles that they face.
Guests:
Vincent Calles, Wenona Bryant, Chris Lee, Jasminder Grewal, Diona Smiley, Neeme Jarvi
Host :
Randy King
Producer :
Tony Mottley
Description: This program from the early fall of 1991 is the second of two special broadcasts focusing on city youth.
Guests:
Alvin O. Jr. Chambliss, Dr. Marjorie Harris, Dr. Anthony Ingram, Ed Vaughn
Host :
Greg Mathis
Producer :
Tony Mottley
Description: This program from the first months of 1991 is interesting, both for the subject matter and for some of the personalities involved in the show.
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.
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.
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.
Guests:
Katherine Blackwell, Baba Inshangi
Host :
Cliff Russell
Producer :
Carlota Almanza
Description: This program, broadcast in 1992, is hosted by Cliff Russell. Divided between a music-dance performance by the Ishangi family from West Africa, and a presentation by Katherine Blackwell, an African American storyteller, the show illustrates the efforts of African Americans to explore - and to transmit to their children - the African roots of American culture.
Guests:
Bob Armstrong, Kevin Fobbs, Keith Butler, Ruth Williams
Host :
Cliff Russell
Producer :
Carlota Almanza
Description: This episode focuses on the problems of public housing in Detroit.
Guests:
John Telford, Byron Williams, Darryl Dawsey, Tomeka Mingo
Host :
Cliff Russell
Producer :
Carlota Almanza
Description: In this program from mid-1992, host Cliff Russell leads a panel discussion, with a studio audience, about the problems that black students face in dealing with racism on college campuses and in high schools. The discussion was an outgrowth of a similar forum conducted a few weeks earlier in the wake of the verdict in the Rodney King beating case and the subsequent rioting in Los Angeles.
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.
Guests:
Herschel Richey, Ricardo Solomon, Clifton R. Wharton
Host :
Cliff Russell
Producer :
Tony Mottley
Description: This program from the fall of 1992 examines the question of collective economics in the black community: Do African American consumers adequately support black-owned businesses, and if not, why not?
Guests:
Karla Brintley, Eugene Perly, Lorraine Van Etten, Saleem Khalid
Host :
Cliff Russell
Producer :
Tony Mottley
Description: Few matters are more fundamental to people's lives than the idea of home, and this program from 1992 explores the difficulties that African Americans face in obtaining the mortgage loans that make home ownership possible.
Guests:
Don Bailey, Bernard Parker, Karla Brintley, Lorraine Van Etten, Saleem Khalid
Host :
Cliff Russell
Producer :
Tony Mottley
Description: This is the second of two programs from 1992 examining the relationship between African Americans, banks and the granting of mortgage loans in the inner city. The program begins with host Cliff Russell posing the question: Do banks discriminate against the inner city in general and blacks in particular?
Guests:
Ernest C. Dillard Sr
Host :
Cliff Russell
Producer :
Carlota Almanza
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.
Guests:
Theresa Jones, Charles Harrell, Mel Farr, Nathan Conyers
Host :
Cliff Russell
Producer :
Carlota Almanza
Description: Originally broadcast in January 1993, the program consists of a roundtable discussion, moderated by host Cliff Russell, between four prominent African American auto dealers from the Detroit area: Mel Farr, a former star athlete with the Detroit Lions, owner of Mel Farr Ford, and chairman of the Black Auto Dealers Association; Charles Harrell, owner of Harrell Chevrolet; Theresa Jones, owner of Northwestern Dodge and former director of nursing at Henry Ford Hospital; and Nathan Conyers, owner of Riverside Ford. This program explores the status and progress of African Americans in the U.S. auto industry as the owners of auto dealerships.
Guests:
Coretta Scott King, Young people from Detroit and across the country
Host :
Cliff Russell
Producer :
Carlota Almanza
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.
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.
Guests:
Rev. Mikal Featchurs, Ron Scott, Anthony McDuffie
Host :
Cliff Russell
Producer :
Tony Mottley
Description: In this program, broadcast in 1993, host Cliff Russell talks with three studio guests about the ways in which black men tend to get singled out for police attention and the reasons why black men constitute a disproportionately large segment of America's prison population.
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.
Guests:
Berry Gordy
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
Description: Founder of Motown Records, Berry Gordy is a legend in Detroit and around the country. Broadcast in 1994 as part of Gordy's tour to promote his autobiography, "To Be Loved," host Darryl Wood talks with Gordy about the early days of his career.
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
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.
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
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.
Guests:
Wynton Marsalis
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
Description: This 1996 program consists of an interview by ABJ host Darryl Wood with renowned trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis, who was 34 at the time. The interview provides insight, not just into Marsalis, but also into the nature of jazz music, and more broadly, the role of the artist in society.
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
Description: In this program, from 1998, host Darryl Wood interviews highly regarded African American scholar Cornell 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.
