While NET Journal offered space for Black voices, filmmakers, and subjects, the shows often sought to create a “balance” in perspectives, as suggested by the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine. Midsummer 1967 and Civil Rights: What Next? are two such examples. In striving for this level of fairness, the shows provide little context for the introduction of new viewpoints on Blackness.
The need for shows created from a Black perspective was essential if public television was to truly fulfill the mandate of the Kerner Commission and fully integrate African Americans into all aspects of news production. Local public television stations established Black public affairs programs in major cities across the US, including Say Brother (Boston), New Mood, New Breed (Philadelphia), Like It Is (New York), Colored People’s Time renamed American Black Journal (Detroit), Our People (Chicago), Minority Matters (Kansas City) and Harambee (Washington). However, while public television stations were willing to target Black audiences, programming often was created under the editorial control of established white producers. Black journalists, filmmakers, and producers had to advocate to shift control of these programs into the hands of African Americans.
A few of these programs such as Black Journal (NET, New York) and Soul! (WNDT, New York) and the aforementioned Say Brother (WGBH, Boston) became national shows and were broadcast across a wide range of public television stations. The appearance of African American- produced public affairs programming at such a critical moment in US political history opened the door for a discussion of a variety of African American political viewpoints outside the integrationist politics espoused by Civil Rights activists.
Since Stokely Carmichael had called for Black Power during his June 16, 1966, speech in Greenwood, Mississippi, the concept of Black Power was largely depicted by mainstream media as radical and potentially dangerous. 6 African American produced public and cultural affairs programming, however, gave voice to the changing political tide evident in the Black Power ethos of the time. These shows expressed a variety of political viewpoints and were often not tethered to the FCC’s “Fairness Doctrine” that required television shows to exhibit a balanced view on controversial topics. The producers of these shows, such as Black Journal producer William Greaves and Ellis Haizlip of Soul!, believed that for far too long television had excluded Black viewpoints all together. Black produced public affairs programs allowed for multiple perspectives on strategies for Black empowerment to be seen across national airwaves for the very first time in US history.
