Shuffled off the air in Buffalo
More than 60 years ago, a Black Toronto teen was told to stop dancing with a white girl on a Buffalo TV show. Toronto exploded
Clayton Johnston was excited to join other ninth-graders on a field trip down the QEW to Buffalo, N.Y., the weekend following Victoria Day in 1959.
In addition to seeing the sights, the friendly and outgoing 15-year-old Malvern Collegiate student and 45 of his schoolmates were scheduled to appear on the television show “Dance Party.”
“Dance Party” broadcast live Saturday afternoons from WGR-TV’s Westside Studios. Back in Toronto, viewers of the popular show, including Leonard and Gwen Johnston, Clayton’s parents, were glued to their TVs.
Cameras rolled at one o’clock. Girls in colourful poodle skirts and boys in dark blazers and ties surrounded host Pat Fagan. The music began, and excited teens swarmed the floor.
Behind the scenes, the studio hummed with activity. The producer queued Fagan up for a live commercial promoting the show’s sponsor, Coca-Cola. Meanwhile, preparations for the spotlight dance segment were arranged. Five couples were selected to pair off on the dance floor.
Coca-Cola spot complete, Fagan stood in the centre of the studio, and mic in hand introduced the spotlight segment. Handsome youth dancing together having a swell time filled TV screens across western New York and the Golden Horseshoe.
The camera panned the dance floor, focusing on Clayton Johnston partnered with 15-year-old classmate Patty
Banks. That’s when things degenerated. Western New York viewers were appalled at the sight of Clayton, one of the few Black students in his high school, dancing with a white girl.
WGR-TV’s phone lines lit up. Irate callers demanded the couple be separated. Cameras continued rolling as a student, instructed by Fagan, hesitantly strolled into the mix, tapping Clayton on the shoulder and urging him to leave the dance floor.
Puzzled, Clayton asked why. The response embarrassed and humiliated him. The youngster slinked off the dance floor, bolting from the studio, angry and confused, cooling off in the rain.
He returned and watched the remainder of the broadcast from the lounge.
The Johnstons witnessed the indignity to their son from the comfort of their east-end living room. Clayton’s father told a reporter he and his wife had been watching the show, “then we didn’t see him again and we thought something like this happened. For this to happen just for being coloured is pretty rotten.”
Leonard Johnston didn’t take the slight sitting down. The CPR porter and community activist requested his union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, lodge a formal complaint against WGR-TV. Union president, civil rights activist and future Citizenship Judge Stanley Grizzle obliged.
The provincial member of parliament where the collegiate was located requested a public inquiry. Canadian brewers threatened to boycott advertising on the station. Telegrams protesting the expulsion were delivered to the station. Toronto editorial pages were inundated with letters of protest from readers.
The Buffalo chapter of the NAACP drafted a letter to the mayor’s office. It read, “This is a slap in the face for democracy, not only in the city of Buffalo but for the whole nation … If this is the practice of the City of Buffalo, then the Negro people of Buffalo are no better off than those Negros who live in the Deep South.”
Except for the Buffalo Criterion, the only newspaper serving the city’s Black readers, local media entirely ignored the story.
The case was different elsewhere. All three Toronto dailies dispatched reporters to the City of Good Neighbours to cover the story. The New York Times noted the occurrence in its paper. CBC Radio had a panel discussion relating to the incident on the show “Teen Tempo.”
Author Victoria Wolcott, professor of history at the University at Buffalo, writes about the incident in her book, “Race, Riots and Roller Coasters.”
Interracial couples dancing at public venues was controversial but not unheard of in Buffalo. However, Wolcott writes, “In this northern city, interracial dancing might happen at one of the Hound Dog’s auditorium shows or in the Zanzibar Lounge, but it could not be broadcast on live television.”
Initially, host Fagan told the Star, in Buffalo, “Negros dance with Negros and whites dance with whites.” He changed his tune when station manager Van Beuren DeVries claimed no policy existed that banned interracial couples dancing together on the show.
A week after the cross-border offence, DeVries sent a letter of apology to young Clayton, “We indeed regret this matter and you have our apology for any embarrassment caused by this treatment.”
Leonard Johnston accepted the apology on behalf of his son. In a letter printed in the Toronto Star, Johnston expressed his gratitude to all Canadians who “brought about this apology and I wish to thank them for expressing their resentment against this discrimination.”
Renowned jazz trombonist Russ Little was a senior at Malvern Collegiate at the time. Among the only Black students at the high school, Little doesn’t remember the Buffalo incident in great detail.
“I wasn’t on the trip, but I remembered it (produced) a big scene around the school. There was a lot of chatter. It was extremely uncomfortable for everyone … and tremendously uncomfortable for Clayton.”
Little has fond memories of his friendship with Johnston. “He had immense natural charm, attractive to all who met him.” Females in particular. “You’d walk down the street and women would literally turn around and stare.”
The young men would soon be performing together. “He was one of the most gifted people I ever met in my life. A tremendous athlete and a great natural musician. I don’t think he ever took a lesson in his life.”
With Little playing trombone, the aspiring musician cobbled together his first quartet consisting of schoolmates Gary Williamson on keys and bassist Bill Hyde. The high schoolers got their first series of gigs at a resort in cottage country.
As Little recalls, “We were frantically looking around for a drummer to join us and Clayton said, ‘I can do it.’ He got a bass drum, a side drum and a snare.”
Music was in Clayton’s blood. Besides having access to an extensive collection of jazz albums at home, his father was a member of the Onyx Boys during the 1930s, the first Black vocal trio to perform on Toronto airwaves.
For the next three summers, Little’s quartet performed at dozens of venues in hotels and resorts throughout northern Ontario. When Little left the band to attend university, the quartet transformed into a trio, branded themselves the Young Jazz Messengers and continued performing.
Little and Johnston saw less of one another after that.
In the mid-1960s as a Woody Herman Band member, Little encountered the same racism his friend and former bandmate experienced at 15 in Buffalo. Touring the U.S., Little experienced racism up close. “That was the first time I’d ever seen Black bathrooms and white bathrooms. I just freaked out. It was a tremendous moment of revelation in my life.”
While Little made a name internationally, Johnston constructed a solid reputation closer to home. A year out of high school, he was backing Sonny Greenwich at nightclubs around town, eventually recording with the award-winning jazz guitarist.
In a 1964 review of his performance at The Cellar accompanying Greenwich, John Norris wrote in “Coda”: “Drummer Clayton Johnston is … a remarkably strong drummer. His vigorous work achieves the right sound for accenting this music.”
He recorded tracks with jazz icons Sadik Hakim and Pepper Adams for Expo 67. A year later, Johnston became the drummer for Duke Edward’s band, the Young Ones. Johnston secured a regular afternoon gig on Yonge Street at the Zanzibar and in the evening played in the pit band for the musical “Godspell” under musical director Paul Shaffer.
In 1971, he was among the musicians who opened for Miles Davis at Massey Hall. Juno Award-winning jazz instrumentalist Don Thompson was on stage that night, too. The two musicians often performed together.
Thompson remembers Johnston played a style similar to Rashied Ali, the American avant-garde drummer best known for playing behind John Coltrane.
“Clayton was wonderful. He was perfect for the music we were playing. He was an interesting guy. He could do a lot of stuff. He was a good R&B drummer, too.”
Personal matters and health issues derailed Johnston’s career and a stroke in 2007 ended his playing days permanently.
If it were up to Thompson, the public would be more familiar with the name Clayton Johnston. He has hours of recordings of Johnston performances in the vault. “Clayton was really good people and a really good musician. He got lost in the shuffle.”
Clayton Johnston is 77 today and lives in a long-term-care facility in Toronto. Contacted by phone, he struggles to recall events from the past and details about his career as a percussionist.
Informed of the praise heaped upon him by his fellow musicians, Johnston is humble. Appreciative of the accolades, he responds with a simple “thank you.”