Race and Television
Few inventions have had as much effect on contemporary American society as television. Before 1945 the number of U.S. homes with television sets could be measured in the thousands. The number of television sets in use rose from 6,000 in 1946 to some 12 million by 1951. No new invention entered American homes faster than black and white television sets; by 1955 half of all U.S. homes had one.
1947 newsreel about Jackie Robinson
The influence of television on Major League baseball has been well established. In 1999, Baseball Weekly listed television as the second most important change in the game during the 20th century. The only thing that changed baseball more than television was Jackie Robinson’s breaking the color barrier in 1947. Jackie Robinson gave new hope to the black community after integrating professional baseball. Robinson gave spirit to the downtrodden; he became a hero and a role model for black and white Americans alike. |
1956 film Don't Knock the Rock featuring Little Richard
Rock 'n' roll – originally called race music – took off when white teenagers began buying black musicians' records. Elvis Presley became one of the first white males to popularize race music, but many mainstream youth also began to popularize black musicians, such as Little Richard. Also known as “black music,” it infected the emerging teen culture. American teens took their portable radios and record players of their parent-controlled living rooms and into their own spaces and began choosing this new kind of music. |
1963 episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show
By 1949 Americans who lived within range of the growing number of television stations in the country could watch any number of sitcoms. The power of television sitcoms cannot be over exaggerated, because it was through this media that American culture shaped its fifties family values. Most sitcoms of the 1950s presented an idyllic picture of white family life. However, as social attitudes began to change in the 1960s, sitcoms began to reflect those changes. The Dick Van Dyke Show aired throughout the 1960s. Compared to earlier sitcoms, the Dick Van Dyke Show portrayed stronger female characters and introduced the topics of race and equality. |
1965 newsreel about the Selma March
The campaign for civil rights was reported in the news with increasing intensity throughout the 1960s. In early 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. made Selma, Alabama, the focus of his efforts to register black voters in the South. Protestors who were attempting to march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were met with violent resistance, all of which was captured on television. The brutal scene enraged many Americans and drew civil rights and religious leaders of all faiths to Selma in protest. The historic march, and the televised images of Southern brutality, greatly helped raise awareness of the difficulty faced by black voters in the South, and the need for a Voting Rights Act, passed later that year. |