On the other hand, perhaps it was these very riots that motivated the shows producers to portray a reassuring image of what America stands for and what it can be, racially equal and united in its fight against the communists.
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Although the Civil Rights Act was passed, ‘nothing approaching the sums and institutions necessary to eradicate poverty and racism was ever committed by the government’ (Sales, 1994:9). The fact that I Spy was set in foreign locations and used mild humour, perhaps enabled the show to present this utopian fantasy of integration oblivious to events such as the violent Watts riots taking place at home. The show is silent on the racial conflict taking place during the mid-60s when ‘A landmark civil rights bill was passed by Congress in 1964 and signed into law, only to be followed by urban rioting that set cities ablaze’ (Monaco, 2001:5). Kelly’s interactions and experiences with Scotty show no signs of racial or cultural difference. Contrary to the stereotypical portrayals of African-Americans in Amos ‘n’ Andy, ‘Scotty’ is represented as sophisticated and equally as capable an agent as Kelly. Shot in foreign locations, the double-act keep a close eye against global communist influence. In 1965, NBC introduced I Spy, a show using the ‘bi-racial buddy’ formula through the partnership of two spies, Robert Culp as Kelly Robinson and Bill Cosby as Alexander Scott. Indeed, In July 1963 ‘CBS instructed program producers and creators that “Negroes should be adequately and accurately” portrayed’ (Boyd, 2008:150). Indicative of the success of the civil rights movement in making their voices heard, ‘by 1963 the twin force of the Civil Rights Movement and the now fully committed Kennedy Administration managed to convince the networks that they could no longer afford to ignore what was fast becoming the nation’s number one domestic sociopolitical preoccupation’ (Boyd, 2008:150). To prevent further escalation, integration rather than segregation was promoted on television and relayed into society. The news media’s exposure of these events made it all the more warranted that the demands and anxieties associated with the civil rights movement were a relevant enough theme to be negotiated in prime time television sitcoms in a more accurate way than the portrayals of African-American life in Amos ‘n’ Andy and Beullah of the 1950s. However, ‘the Civil Rights Movement achieved one of its greatest moments – and its most significant television moment – when all three networks pre-empted programming to carry live the March on Washington’ (Boyd, 2008:144). 250,000 marched on Washington in 1963 and heard Martin Luther King, Jr’s famous “I have a dream…” speech, the event was significant not least because it was the first time that the networks “devoted so much time, effort, manpower, technology, and forfeited advertising revenue to such an event’ (Boyd, 2008:147).
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However, these shows ‘motivated African Americans, to confront the television industry, because they believed these programs harkened back to stereotypical notions of blackness and would have a negative impact on the black community seeking full integration’ (Acham, 2004:6). The black community was indeed seeking full integration and a series of student sit-in protests, followed by an event in Mississippi where President Kennedy ordered in federal troops as riots broke out when James Meredith attempted to enroll as the first African-American to attend the state’s flagship campus, ensured that their plight was in the national consciousness and not just treated as a regional issue. Another notable show was Beullah (1950-53), the first sitcom to star an African-American actress. The show Amos ‘n’ Andy (1951-53) became the first program with an all black cast.
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As news footage exposed police brutality against African-American children to the masses and segregation was turned into a national issue, television reflected this segregated society. The rise of countercultures and the civil rights movement in particular, meant that African-American struggles received voluminous attention in the news, but ‘in prime-time entertainment programming, American audiences saw a mostly whitewashed world, with the dramas and sitcoms of the mid-50s and the mid-60s rarely featuring non-white characters’ (Boyd, 2008:141). 1960s America saw rising antiwar, antipoverty and civil rights protests for social change.