‘Black TV’ celebrates Pryor, Foxx, other trailblazers
One measure of race relations in the United States has been who was allowed to frequent the living rooms of White Americans. To be Black and on TV, and on a first-name basis with White viewers — Julia, J.J., Cliff, Olivia, Annalise and Dre, to name just a few over the last half-century — was to be trusted.
In her book “Black TV: Five Decades of Groundbreaking Television From Soul Train to Black-ish and Beyond,” Washington Post pop culture writer Bethonie Butler is less interested in narrating how Black TV changed America (which it did) than in telling stories that “center Black people and their experiences, without tethering those experiences to the white people in their midst.”
“Black TV” arrives during what might be seen as a victory lap for Black storytellers. When “Insecure” creator Issa Rae was interviewed on the red carpet before the 2017 Emmys and said she was “rooting for everybody Black,” she might have been conjuring the success of Shonda Rhimes (“Scandal”), Donald Glover (“Atlanta”), Quinta Brunson (“Abbott Elementary”) and Kenya Barris (“Black-ish”). The fact that many of those award winners found their voices as writers and showrunners speaks to the goals of “Black TV,” which is at its best when it highlights the creators and producers, as opposed to actors, who brought some semblance of Black life to television.
Butler logically begins with “Julia,” which launched in 1968 with Diahann Carroll in the title role. Before “Julia” — a story about a widowed nurse and mother — series like “Amos ‘n’ Andy” and “Beulah” either leaned on stereotypes or depicted Black characters solely as servants. Hal Kanter worked on “Amos,” so creating “Julia” might have been an act of penance, but he was not convinced that the upscale Carroll would connect with viewers. And thus began the timeless dance that Butler continually recounts, of white producers and network executives serving as arbiters for what they believed to be authentic Blackness.
While Carroll’s fame as an actress of stage and film helped her get the role, in other cases breakthroughs depended on the support of working Black actors, comedians and writers. One of the heroes of “Black TV” is comedian Redd Foxx. Butler shares the story of Foxx’s 1965 appearance on “The Tonight Show” when Johnny Carson asked about the best comic — presumably Black comic — on the scene. Foxx’s generous shout-out to Flip Wilson propelled Wilson to A-list status and a highly rated variety show. Wilson, in turn, used his show as a springboard for the premiere of Foxx’s “Sanford and Son” in 1972.
Foxx hired “Black famous” writers Richard Pryor and Paul Mooney to work on “Sanford and Son” (though only two of the four episodes that the duo wrote made it to air) and advocated for “Chitlin’ Circuit” veterans like Slappy White and LaWanda Page as the unforgettable Aunt Esther. As Butler writes, Foxx threatened to quit “after producers suggested Page would need to be replaced because she lacked television experience.”
Pryor translated his newly minted mainstream appeal into a seminal moment when he hosted “Saturday Night Live” during its first season. Based on Pryor’s star turn, NBC approached him to do a weekly variety show. “The Richard Pryor Show,” which premiered in 1977, lasted only four episodes, in large part because of Pryor’s battles with network executives, but it had a lasting impact.
Mooney served as a writer and cast member, along with a handful of thenunknowns like Tim Reid (“WKRP in Cincinnati”), Marsha Warfield (“Night Court”) and John Witherspoon, who became everyone’s favorite Black father for the next two generations. Butler notes that “the through lines from The Richard Pryor Show to In Living Color to Def Comedy Jam to Chappelle’s Show are plentiful.”
The roster of actors who appeared on sitcoms like “Sanford and Son,” “Good Times” and “The Jeffersons” - the trio of Norman Lear-produced sitcoms that forever changed how race was discussed on television — speaks to the ethical practices of Black Hollywood, though Hollywood did not always give Black creators that same level of respect. Butler recalls that “Good Times” co-creator Eric Monte sued producers Lear and Bud Yorkin for “stealing his ideas for Good Times, as well as the characters of George and Louise Jefferson, and What’s Happening!!, the 1976 sitcom based on Monte’s Cooley High.” He reportedly received a $1 million settlement and a portion of residuals from “Good Times.”
With the success in recent years of “Scandal,” “How to Get Away With Murder” and “Empire,” it is
easy to forget the early struggles of Black dramatic actors. No one could have predicted that an eightnight miniseries about generations of enslaved Africans in the United States would represent one of the greatest assemblages of Black actors ever. The cast of “Roots” (1977) included future Academy Award winners Louis Gossett Jr. and Cicely Tyson and Tony winner Ben Vereen. Indeed, Gossett and Olivia Cole won Emmys for their supporting roles. Yet, as Butler notes, “Roots” “did not change the hiring landscape for Black actors as many had expected.”
The success of “Roots” came as the popularity of the “Black sitcom” started to wane. The game changer was “The Cosby Show” in 1984. At the time Black characters had become tokens or, worse, fish-out-ofwater types on series like “Gimme a Break,” “Facts of Life” and “Diff’rent Strokes.” In the wake of “The Cosby Show,” “Jeffersons” veterans Sherman Hemsley and Marla Gibbs were given second acts on “Amen” and “227,” respectively. Black family life sitcoms followed, including “The Fresh Prince of BelAir” and “Family Matters” (which ran an astounding 215 episodes), as well as shows launched on fledgling networks Fox, the WB and UPN, such as “Moesha” and “Living Single.”
The powerful message throughout “Black TV” is that the figures with the biggest impact played a long game. Butler closes the book with Sheryl Lee Ralph, who won her first
Emmy at age 65 for her work on “Abbott Elementary.” When Ralph belted, “I am an endangered species/ But I sing no victim’s song,” as she accepted her award, she sang for generations of Black Hollywood. It was a fitting tribute, as is Butler’s “Black TV.”
Mark Anthony Neal is the James B. Duke distinguished professor of African and African American studies at Duke University. His next book, “Save a Seat for Me: Meditations of Black Masculinity and Fatherhood,” will be published by Simon & Schuster.