MUSEUM OF TELEVISION & RADIO LEONARD H. GOLDENSON UNIVERSITY SATELLITE SEMINAR SERIES, THE: TELEVISION AND THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: ON THE FRONT LINES: TELEVISION AND AFRICAN-AMERICAN ISSUES {LONG VERSION}
Summary
One in this series of seminars conducted by The Museum of Television & Radio. This seminar, held in New York and moderated by Museum president Robert M. Batscha, is one of three that explore the relationship between television and the African-American experience; this session focuses on the civil-rights movement. Batscha begins by welcoming the audience, which includes students from over 200 colleges and universities who are watching the seminar via satellite. He then introduces his guests: Gerald M. Boyd, managing editor of the New York Times; Benjamin Hooks, former executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Nicholas Katzenbach, former U.S. attorney general; Judy Richardson, civil-rights activist and filmmaker; and Dorothy M. Zellner, veteran of the civil-rights movement. (Panelist biographies immediately follow this summary.)
Before beginning the discussion, Batscha screens a series of clips, which include footage from "Bell & Howell Close-up! Walk in My Shoes," 1961; "Eyes on the Prize," 1987; "A Decade of Struggle," 1980; "The American Experience: Malcolm X: Make It Plain," 1994; "CBS News Special Report: March on Washington," 1963; "CBS Reports: Watts: Riot or Revolt," 1965; "The MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour," 1991; and "ABC News Nightline: America in Black and White," 1996. Batscha then asks his guests to reflect on their own experiences with television and the movement. Zellner emphasizes that the networks, not local stations, broke local civil-rights stories. Richardson notes that television brought both advantages and disadvantages to the movement. Katzenbach states that he can barely conceive of the movement without television coverage. Hooks describes the drama that southern conflict between whites and peaceful demonstrators brought to television news. And Boyd talks of the appeal of the "heroes and villains" of the story to television producers. The panelists go on to give their opinions on what Batscha calls television's role as the American "national newspaper"; Richardson suggests that in television's emphasis on "the great man," such as Martin Luther King, Jr., it failed to portray much of the grass-roots strength of civil-rights activists. The group also touches on the changes in television's portrayal of civil rights over the years and the difficulty of interpreting complex stories on television. Batscha welcomes questions from the student audience, and in answering them the panelists touch on the following topics, among others: the relative roles of networks and local television stations in covering civil rights; what a student calls the "more murky" coverage of racially oriented issues today; censorship of network news coverage at the local level; the bias against women in news coverage of the 1960s; and the effect of the movement on television. Batscha closes by saying that he is honored to have hosted the panel.
Biographies Gerald M. Boyd has been managing editor of the New York Times since September 2001. He served as the co-senior editor of the Times's "How Race Is Lived in America" series, which was published in 2000 and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. Boyd joined the Times in November1983 and was a member of its national political team, reporting on Vice President Bush during the 1984 Presidential election. In 1991 he was appointed metropolitan editor, managing a staff of more than 100 reporters and editors. In 1994 his team received a Pulitzer Prize for spot news in recognition of its coverage of the bombing of the World Trade Center. Boyd is a graduate of the University of Missouri and attended Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow, the youngest journalist at the time selected to the program.
Benjamin Hooks served as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for fifteen years, beginning in 1977. An ordained minister and licensed attorney, he has a long history as a civil-rights activist, having joined Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and having led NAACP-sponsored sit-ins and other boycotts beginning in the 1950s. In 1965 he became the first African-American criminal court judge in Tennessee history. He moved to Washington in 1972, becoming the first African-American appointed to the Federal Communications Commission. Under his leadership, the NAACP bolstered membership and played a leading role in the debate over such issues as affirmative action, federal aid to cities, and the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nicholas Katzenbach was assistant attorney general and deputy attorney general of the United States under President Kennedy from 1961 to 1964, during which time he played a crucial role in the desegregation of the University of Alabama. He served as U.S. attorney general from 1965 to 1966 and undersecretary of state from 1966 to 1969. After leaving the government, he joined the IBM Corporation as senior vice president and general counsel, remaining there until 1986. A graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, he has been in private practice since leaving IBM.
Judy Richardson is a longtime civil-rights activist and award-winning producer of television documentaries, with credits including "Eyes on the Prize" and "Malcolm X: Make It Plain." She was a staff member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the early 1960s, working on civil-rights projects throughout the South. In 1965 she became the office manager for Julian Bond's campaign for the Georgia House of Representatives. In 1978 she began working on television documentaries for Blackside, Inc., producer of "Eyes on the Prize," the acclaimed documentary series on the civil-rights movement. She was content adviser and researcher for the first series and associate producer on the second. She also co-produced the documentary "Malcolm X: Make It Plain," winner of both an Emmy and a Peabody Award, and the pilot for "Hopes on the Horizon," focusing on three African liberation movements. She is currently senior producer with Northern Lights Productions in Boston.
Dorothy M. Zellner is a veteran of the 1960s civil-rights movement. She was a staff member at the Atlanta-based Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1962 to 1967, working with Julian Bond as part of SNCC's communications department. Zellner participated in and wrote about demonstrations in Danville, Virginia, and was in Greenwood, Mississippi, for the Freedom Summer of 1964. She currently serves as director of institutional advancement for the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law. Zellner also continues to speak about the civil-rights movement, particularly black/Jewish relationships, the role of the FBI, and the use of violence and nonviolence.
Details
- NETWORK: N/A
- DATE: November 7, 2001 7:30 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:30:26
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:67534
- GENRE: Seminars
- SUBJECT HEADING: African-American Collection - News/Talk
- SERIES RUN: N/A
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Robert M. Batscha … Host
- Gerald M. Boyd … Panelist
- Benjamin Hooks … Panelist
- Nicholas Katzenbach … Panelist
- Judy Richardson … Panelist
- Dorothy M. Zellner … Panelist
- Martin Luther King, Jr.