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Images Sources: CBS 1942, Jim Crow Museum, Radio Hall of Fame, and Shelley Stewart

Season Two: Episode 03:
The Evolution of Black Media, Part 1

This week we kick off the first of a two-part series on the Evolution of Black Media. In this episode, Shelley tells us about the early days of Black Media and how much of the entertainment for black audiences was produced by whites. Amos 'n' Andy, for example, a well-known radio sitcom, was produced and performed by two white actors.

Shelley recalls how the first black man in radio, Jack Cooper, blazed a trail in 1929, and by the time Shelley created his Playboy persona, he wasn’t interested in entertaining just blacks; he used the power of music to bring people together.


To listen to Part One of The Evolution of Black Media, CLICK HERE

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Excerpt and Blackface examples are from The Jim Crow Museum
https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/question/2016/march.htm

"During the heyday of radio, many advertisers sponsored entire shows. Advertisers sponsored dozens of shows that featured minstrel type performances. For example, Rinsol, Lever Brothers, Pepsodent, and Campbell’s Soup sponsored the Amos ‘n’ Andy show from the 1930s to the 1950s. The Pick and Pat show was sponsored by Dills Best and Model Smoking tobacco. Postum sponsored the Beulah show, which initially was voiced by a white male actor Marlin Hurt. Molasses and January were featured performers on the Dr. Pepper Parade show. The Jack Benny show, which was sponsored by Jell-O, sometimes featured Eddie Anderson, playing African-American valet Rochester, with blackface performers in skits."

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The Beulah show was sponsored by numerous sponsors, but this video highlights the advertisements of TUMS and General Foods on the Beulah show. The original Beulah was created and performed by a white actor, Marlin Hurt. Amanda Randolph was the last radio version of Beulah.

TUMS and General Foods on the Beulah show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk76BTu1y34

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Rinsol, Lever Brothers, Pepsodent, Rexall,and Campbell’s Soup sponsored the Amos ‘n’ Andy radio show.

 

Sponsors the Amos ‘n’ Andy radio show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVCI2W0Zr1s

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Amos 'n' Andy was born on radio in 1928. But its stereotypes and caricatures have roots deep in American culture and branches that are still evident today. The negative images in Amos 'n' Andy not only have historical precedents, but that they continued to inform televised representations of black Americans long after the show was no longer available.

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Only known audio of the Gold Dust Twins show. Excerpt came from a reunion segment on the "Behind the Mike" show from 1940. Goldy and Dusty were two white actors, Harvey Hindemeyer and Earle Tuckerman, who performed skits in blackface and spoke with a broken dialect. The show was sponsored by Fairbanks Gold Dust Washing Powder.

 

Fairbanks Gold Dust Washing Powder ads https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KrlY-P3DIY

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Pick and Pat and Molasses n January were blackface characters performed by Pick Malone and Pat Padgett. The duo were featured on shows sponsored by Dills Best Smoking Tobacco and Model Smoking Tobacco, Dr. Pepper, and Maxwell House coffee.

Pick and Pat and Molasses n January were blackface characters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuLX1xUakaI

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The Jack Benny Show was sponsored by Jell-O in 1936. Many segments featured blackface performers.

 

Jack Benny Show blackface performers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7v58XJR60Y

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Captain Henry’s Showboat featuring Molasses and January at the 4:16 mark. This film is a “picturization” of the Maxwell House Showboat radio show.

 

Maxwell House Showboat radio show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiYYKDoZdxA

Photos of Plumbline's Host, Dr. Shelley Stewart

The Road South

As a five-year-old in Home-wood, Alabama, Shelley Stewart watched his father kill his mother with an axe. Two years later, Stewart escaped the care of abusive relatives, making a living as a stable hand. A stint in the army led to electroshock treatments for trying to integrate whites-only dances. But despite numerous setbacks, he never gave up his will to succeed. Eventually, odd jobs at radio stations laid the foundation for a 50-year career in broadcasting.

As an African-American radio personality, Stewart reached out to Jim Crow Alabama, using music to integrate his audience. Along the way, he helped launch the careers of such legends as Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, and Gladys Knight. Instrumental in the Civil Rights Movement, he publicized the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A remarkable witness to and participant in the momentous social changes of the last three decades, Stewart, now a successful businessman and community leader, shares his courageous personal story that shows the indomitable strength of the human spirit.

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Also, Available On Audible

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Click An Icon Below To Listen To Shelley's Plumbline Podcast

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Shelleys Plumbline Spotify
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Dive Deeper

The University of Arizona 

The Evolution of Black Representation on Television

February 21, 2022

Television has served as "a primary source of America's racial education," says UArizona scholar Stephanie Troutman Robbins.

Q: What are the main ways that TV's depiction of Black people has changed over time?

A: Early television really reflected a very narrow representation of non-white characters. And a lot of the earlier characters were caricatures and racist depictions in many ways. 

 

And then as time goes on, we start to see more Black folks and we start to see them move from peripheral or secondary characters into primary focus. But for a while in television, you had extremes. You had the Black criminal stereotype and all the negative tropes associated with Blackness on the one hand, and then you had good, assimilating, respectable Black characters on the other. 

In the '80s, "The Cosby Show" depicted a Black affluent family who were different from the way that Blacks were mostly portrayed in mainstream TV at the time.

National Museum of African America History & Culture

Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom

Blackface: The Birth of An American Stereotype

Historian Dale Cockrell once noted that poor and working-class whites who felt “squeezed politically, economically, and socially from the top, but also from the bottom, invented minstrelsy” as a way of expressing the oppression that marked being members of the majority, but outside of the white norm. Minstrelsy, comedic performances of “blackness” by whites in exaggerated costumes and make-up, cannot be separated fully from the racial derision and stereotyping at its core. By distorting the features and culture of African Americans—including their looks, language, dance, deportment, and character—white Americans were able to codify whiteness across class and geopolitical lines as its antithesis.

Make sure you check out their collection at https://shorturl.at/btTV3

Doug Battema

Pictures of a Bygone Era: The Syndication of Amos ‘n’ Andy, 1954-66

Abstract

This article seeks to raise questions about historiographical practice, challenge the reliance on apparently stable discourses of nation and race within contemporary historiography, and expand understanding of the potential and multiple sites of influence in which television operated during its early years as a popular medium. Drawing on principles articulated by Foucault and de Certeau about the production and generation of knowledge, the article critiques previous historical examinations of Amos ‘n’ Andy for overlooking salient features of the television program's cultural and industrial context, as well as its syndication run from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Using information about the syndication of Amos ‘n’ Andy gleaned principally from entertainment and advertising trade journals, the article points out how a more thorough understanding of the local, regional, and international context and of industrial practices may prove essential for recognizing possibilities about the patterns and circulation of cultural beliefs and historiographical norms.

Battema, D. (2006). Pictures of a Bygone Era: The Syndication of Amos ‘n’ Andy, 1954-66. Television & New Media, 7(1), 3–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476403253999.

Lanier Frush Holt

Writing the wrong: can counter-stereotypes offset negative media messages about African Americans?

Abstract

Several studies show media messages activate or exacerbate racial stereotypes. This

analysis, however, may be the first to examine which types of information—those

that directly contradict media messages (i.e., crime-related) or general news (i.e.,

non-crime-related)—are most effective in abating stereotypes. Its findings suggest

fear of crime is becoming more a human fear, not just a racial one. Furthermore,

it suggests tbat for younger Americans, the concomitant dyad of the black criminal

stereotype—race and crime—is fueled more by crime than by race.

Holt, L. F. (2013). Writing the wrong: can counter-stereotypes offset negative media messages about African Americans?  Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 90(1), 108. 

Lanier Frush Holt

Writing the wrong: can counter-stereotypes offset negative media messages about African Americans?

Abstract

Several studies show media messages activate or exacerbate racial stereotypes. This

analysis, however, may be the first to examine which types of information—those

that directly contradict media messages (i.e., crime-related) or general news (i.e.,

non-crime-related)—are most effective in abating stereotypes. Its findings suggest

fear of crime is becoming more a human fear, not just a racial one. Furthermore,

it suggests tbat for younger Americans, the concomitant dyad of the black criminal

stereotype—race and crime—is fueled more by crime than by race.

Holt, L. F. (2013). Writing the wrong: can counter-stereotypes offset negative media messages about African Americans?  Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 90(1), 108. 

References

Dunning, J. On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, Oxford University Press, 1998

Internet Archive, archive.org, Last accessed March 2016

Old Time Radio Catalog, OTRCAT.com, Last accessed March 2016

Old Radio World, Oldradioworld.com, Last accessed March 2016

Old Time Radio Downloads, Oldtimeradiodownloads.com, Last accessed March 2016

Radio Echoes, Radioechoes.com, Last accessed March 2016

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