My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 145

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Among them was Madeline Anderson,
who had been a film editor at net since
1964, and was promoted to producer
after the walkout. Anderson was the
sole woman to fill that role at net.
Among her numerous contributions
for Black Journal, she produced and
directed a documentary segment on
Malcolm X on the fourth anniversary
of his death. Anderson eventually
left net to start an independent film
company (Onyx Productions) and
became known as one of the first
African American women to produce
and direct her own films, including the
influential “I Am Somebody” (1970).
She returned to public television as a
producer and director for Sesame Street
and The Electric Company, among other
programs. Anderson’s interviews do
not hint at any dissatisfaction with her
experience at Black Journal. But Sheila
Smith Hobson, who joined the Black
Journal team with a master’s degree in
hand, left the program embittered.
She later wrote an essay for the feminist
classic Sisterhood is Powerful, in which
she decried the discrimination she
encountered as a black woman in the
media. At net “my womanhood and
blackness were constantly insulted,” she
wrote. While it was revelatory to have
black male colleagues “who for once
weren’t mail boys,” she found that Black
Journal’s gender politics varied little
from the rest of television. Hobson
moved on to become the original
producer for the New York City-based
public affairs program Like It Is,
and years later she seemed to soften
her criticism. After a decade in the
profession, she hailed Black Journal
for producing “one of the most highly
diversified and highly trained groups
of Black professional media experts
ever assembled.”

Peggy Pinn, director of the Black
Journal Workshop, was a central player
in the education and assembling of this
creative community. She was singularly
responsible for training hundreds
of aspiring filmmakers and television
producers of color, and she understood
that she blazed a path for young
women in the industry. “I was different
from many of the young black women
who take our course today,” she said in
a 1971 interview. “I didn’t go into the
business knowing what I was going to
do. I sort of fell into it.” Pinn was one
of scant few African American women
working in television, beginning her
career in the 1950s as a secretary at cbs.
She developed production skills during
her seven years in that position, and
then moved to abc to assist with a
documentary about Africa. She became
politicized during this period: “Out of
all the people working on that project,
I remember there were only two
being black,” she told Ebony. “I became
more and more resentful.” Pinn gave
a devastating assessment of racism in
the television and film industries: “I
am convinced that the unions and the
networks work together in blocking
out black technicians.” She held no
illusions that the act of training black
media workers would transform “white”
television; rather, she articulated a
nationalist vision, imagining that “we
will find our own resources…all the
skills and facilities we will need to
build our own filmmaking industry.”
But Pinn was constantly thwarted by
lack of funding and equipment, which
she attributed to sexism and racism.
“Men have a difficult time taking women
seriously in this business,” she told
Black Enterprise. “I was so disheartened
that I seriously considered throwing
up my hands and finding some man to
run the program.”

The Black Journal Workshop responded
to one of the key mandates of the
Kerner Commission report — education
and training opportunities to create
a pathway for people of color into the
media. Yet, the Ford Foundation
allocated its resources to new training
programs at Columbia University,
Syracuse University, and the University
of California at Los Angeles, rather
than sustain the Black Journal project.
In contrast to programs housed
at universities, the Black Journal
Workshop, like the television show
itself, operated at the margins of
mainstream institutions and was
structured around the ideals of
black autonomy and self-sufficiency.
According to a Ford Foundation report,
the projects they selected for funding
were “operated by established
institutions,” suggesting that any
independent, black-led program would
not fit their criteria. In 1971, Pinn was
instrumental in moving the program
under the umbrella of the Public
Broadcasting System, changing the
name to the National Educational
Television Training Workshop.