Browse shows on: Poverty, Progress, and the Rise of African-American Businesses and Professionals
The segmentation of the African-Americans into a new middle class and an existing underclass was a major theme in American economy and society during the last quarter of the 20th century. ABJ interviews with black leaders and reformers highlight the ways that the restructuring of the rustbelt economy perpetuated some barriers to achievement as it opened new opportunities to the increasing number of skilled African-Americans.
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: "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.
Blacks In Corporate America (1985)Guests: Levi Jackson, Dr. Robert Newby, John Blunt, Michael Carr, Robert Hill
Host : Ed Gordon
Producer : Tony Mottley
Description: This hour-long program from 1985 examines the status of African Americans in America's corporate world, in particular, the barriers that prevent black executives from advancing into the upper levels of corporate management.
Dave Bing and Earl Graves (1986)Guests: Dave Bing, Earl Graves
Host : Ed Gordon
Producer : Dianne Atkinson-Hudson
Description: The search for economic autonomy and self-determination has long been an important concern in the African American community. This 1986 program explores the state of that search through a discussion between host Ed Gordon and two prominent African American businessmen: Earl Graves, editor and publisher of Black Enterprise Magazine, and Dave Bing, president of Bing Steel and a former member of the Detroit Pistons.
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.
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.
Old Hastings Street (1989)Guests: Dorothy DeMorcia, Wardell Polk, Siliva Williams, Lyman Woodard
Host : Trudy Gallant
Producer : Tony Mottley
Description: This program from February 1989 crosses a range of categories as it explores the history of Detroit's black neighborhoods in the first half of the 20th century. Host Trudy Gallant discusses that history with a panel which includes two Detroiters who grew up in the Black Bottom/Paradise Valley area on the city's near east side, and the curator of a new exhibit about the period on display at the Detroit Historical Museum.
State of Black America (January 1989)Guests: Dr. Leon Chestang, N. Charles Anderson, John E. Jacob
Host : Trudy Gallant
Producer : Tony Mottley
Description: This program, broadcast in January 1989, discusses a report recently issued by the National Urban League assessing the economic and social challenges facing African Americans.
Reparations (1990)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.
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.
Black Consumers and Black Business (1992)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?
Detroit Auto Industry (1993)Guests: Theresa Jones, Charles Harrell, Mel Farr, Nathan Conyers
Host : Cliff Russell
Producer : Carlota Almanza
Duration: 0:27:56
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.
Berry Gordy (1994)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
Duration: 0:27:47
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.
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.
