My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 150

BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

Several minutes were devoted to
the case of Angela Davis, imprisoned
on conspiracy charges in the
widely-publicized courtroom shoot-out
to free George Jackson in August 1970.
The botched escape attempt left a
judge and several prisoners dead and
Davis on the fbi’s “Most Wanted.”
The film linked Davis’ fate to that of
the unknown inmates who were all
political prisoners unable to obtain
fair trials and sentences. The episode
was timely and prophetic — just four
months later, George Jackson died
at the hands of prison guards at
San Quentin prison. “Justice” was
rebroadcast a week later, followed by
a Black Journal special to focus on
Jackson’s death, which included an
invitation to the audience to call in
during the broadcast. These initiatives
reinforced Black Journal’s role as the
de facto electronic public sphere for
black America. The New York Times’
new television critic, John J. O’Connor,
was impressed by the “startlingly
candid interviews” and was clearly
moved by the portrayal of George
Jackson, who had been imprisoned for
11 years for being an accessory to a $70
robbery. But O’Connor decried what
he saw as the program’s lack of balance,
stating that the opinions of white
officials and prison guards was absent
from the program.

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During his first years as producer,
Brown marshaled the corps of Black
Journal filmmakers, including Greaves,
Kent Garrett, and Stan Latham, to
develop memorable documentary
projects. Among them was “Justice,”
first broadcast in April 1971. The episode,
filmed on location at San Quentin and
Soledad prisons in California, offered
unprecedented glimpses into the
experiences and perspectives of black
prison inmates and articulated a
powerful critique of racism within the
criminal justice system. Produced by
Latham, it presented interviews with
prisoners, attorneys, and prisoner-rights
advocates against a backdrop of urban
blight and claustrophobic prison cells,
pressing home the relationship between
inequality and incarceration. The cameras
zoomed in on the despair etched on
prisoner’s faces, the menacing
relationships with prison guards, and
the monotonous labor in prison shops.
Said one young man: “I’d like the
whole thing to be torn down. This ain’t
nothin’ but a concentration camp.
Half the brothers in here are in here
because they’re poor… As a prison
system this is a total failure.”

The December 1971 episode inspired
another round of intense criticism
from the New York Times. In a careful,
yet blistering, attack, O’Connor tore
apart an episode titled “Black Paper
on White Racism,” which featured Rev.
Albert Cleage, Professor John Henrik
Clarke, and Preston Wilcox, of the
Congress of African People, all strong
proponents of Afrocentrism.
The panel followed Black Journal’s
tradition of providing a platform for
the spectrum of black political thought,
but O’Connor was horrified when
Cleage declared that white Jews had
no blood connections to black Jews in
Biblical Israel or when Wilcox argued
that in white society there was no
objective truth. In O’Connor’s view,
the program was filled with “sweeping
generalities” that were “a blend of facts,
half-truths, myths and legends that
are essentially unarguable.” He deemed
the discussion racist and anti-Semitic,
and blamed Brown for encouraging
their commentary. The review ended
with an acknowledgement that Black
Journal and Brown “deserve to be
treated seriously,” but also “seriously
questioned.” Brown went on the
offensive, holding a press conference
to deny the charges and affirm Black
Journal’s goal of presenting black
American perspectives “without undue
concern for white sensibilities.”
He took O