My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 148

BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

The documentary compared Tanzania’s
economic and political identity with
neighboring Kenya, which Black
Journal framed as more westernized and
influenced by its colonial past.
The program concluded with a feature
on the Mozambique Liberation
Front (Freelimo) and the fight against
Portuguese rule, with a visit to a
Freelimo camp and an interview with a
rebel field commander. Over the span
of two years, Black Journal regularly
conveyed to its viewers that people of
African descent should embrace their
shared histories of oppression and
of liberation struggles. This message
of black resistance and empowerment
marked the end of Greaves’ tenure as
executive producer.

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Black Journal’s spokespersons sought
to represent the program as vital to
African American’s interests, but not
everyone took such a sanguine position.
An early review by a black journalist
doubted the program’s black nationalist
impulse, pointing to its need to address
whites in the audience. “The name
of the program might well be changed
to ‘Negro Journal’… ” he said,
implying that the program’s producers
were “Uncle Toms.” Another opinion
piece in the black press lambasted the
program for “paying `niggers’ executive
salaries to air their ‘strategies’ to
millions of viewers.” The writer saw
Black Journal as a mere hustle, where
a handful of fortunate blacks could
“throw a few obscenities into the air”
and then posture about how they
“‘sho told Whitey Off ’.” There were
undoubtedly many black viewers who
felt this way, but rarely were such
feelings made public as black media
closed ranks around the venture.
Nevertheless, the campaign to keep
Black Journal on the air succeeded. net,
with funds from the Ford Foundation,
made a commitment to the program
by guaranteeing it a slot in the fall
1969 broadcast schedule. Indeed, net
appeared to imitate Black Journal’s
magazine format with the creation of a
weekly program net Journal.

In its second year, Black Journal’s
direction became increasingly
transnational. The first new program
of the season, described as “A Black
Focus on South Africa,” compared that
country’s oppressed majority to the
condition of blacks in the United States.
The segment screened a film smuggled
out of South Africa that reviewed
the African nationalist movement and
the Sharpeville massacre. A panel
discussion included exiled South African
activist Peter Molotsi and South
African writer Keorapetse “Willie”
Kgositsile, offering a rare glimpse of the
struggle against apartheid for American
viewers. A Black Journal crew traveled
to Africa to cover the first Pan-African
Cultural Festival in Algiers, where
radical activists Eldridge Cleaver and
Stokely Carmichael were both featured
guests. This was followed by a segment
focusing on black soldiers in Vietnam
featured interviews with servicemen
in dramatic settings, including aboard
a helicopter. The program captured
the mix of anger, fear and frustration
that marked their service. Said one
soldier, “You go up in Saigon; down
those streets you ain’t welcome at
all and they let you know it. Let a
white man walk there, he’s welcome —
but just like the world — Georgia,
Alabama, even New York, you get
some places where you can’t go.” Black
Journal returned to the African continent
in May 1970 for a special program
on the emerging democracies of Kenya
and Tanzania. Producer Tony Batten
interviewed Tanzanian President Julius
Nyerere, exploring the young nation’s
efforts to build a socialist society.