My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 137

The “Electronic
Stimulus for a
Black Revolution”:
Black Journal and the 1960s Public television

136

In 1968 symbols of black
American militancy
circulated frequently in
mass culture. That year
James Brown’s black
power anthem, ‘Say it
Loud — I’m Black and I’m
Proud’ was a hit record
on soul radio, Eldridge
Cleaver’s defiant memoir
Soul on Ice reached the
New York Times bestseller
list, boxer Muhammad
Ali was featured on the
cover of Esquire magazine
as a martyr for his refusal
to be inducted in the
U.S. Army, and athletes
Tommy Smith and
John Carlos pumped
their fists in the air at
the Mexico City Olympic
Games as the world
watched on television.
These cultural forms signaled the rising
influence of Black Power as a political
and aesthetic movement, and the
increasing importance of black Americans
as media consumers. The mass media
were a key battleground in the black
freedom struggle and activists demanded
changes in how blackness was
represented. Just months after the
assassination of Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr., a group of African Americans
gained access to a prized channel of
mass communication — the fledgling
public broadcasting network.
They launched Black Journal, a public
affairs television program, to directly
confront these issues.

By

JANE RHODES, PhD