Locating a persistent black nationalist desire - yearning for home and community - in the shows produced in the 1980s and 1990s, Zook shows how the Fox hip-hop sitcom both reinforced and rebelled against earlier black sitcoms from the 1960s and 1970s.

In Black Power TV, Devorah Heitner chronicles the emergence of Black public affairs television starting in 1968. She examines two local shows, New York's Inside Bedford-Stuyvesant and Boston's Say Brother, and the national programs Soul! and Black Journal. These shows offered viewers radical and innovative programming: the introspections of a Black police officer in Harlem, African American high school students discussing visionary alternatives to the curriculum, and Miriam Makeba comparing race relations in the United States to apartheid in South Africa. While Inside Bedford-Stuyvesant and Say Brother originated from a desire to contain Black discontent during a period of urban uprisings and racial conflict, these shows were re-envisioned by their African American producers as venues for expressing Black critiques of mainstream discourse, disseminating Black culture, and modeling Black empowerment. At the national level, Soul! and Black Journal allowed for the imagining of a Black nation and a distinctly African American consciousness, and they played an influential role in the rise of the Black Arts Movement. Black Power TV reveals how regulatory, activist, and textual histories are interconnected and how Black public affairs television redefined African American representations in ways that continue to reverberate today.

This book explores the written and unwritten requirements Black journalists face in their efforts to get and keep jobs in television news. Informed by interviews with journalists themselves, Lewis examines how raced Black journalists and their journalism organizations process their circumstances and choose to respond to the corporate and institutional constraints they face. She uncovers the social construction and attempted control of "Blackness" in news production and its subversion by Black journalists negotiating issues of objectivity, authority, voice, and appearance along sites of multiple differences of race, gender, and sexuality.

This assessment of black film history distinguishes between American films that are controlled by Blacks and those which utilize black talent, but are controlled by Whites. The study ranges from the earliest black involvement in Hollywood to present feminist influences in black productions.

The media's treatment of and interaction with race, like race itself, is one of the most sensitive areas hi American society. Whether hi its coverage and treatment of racial matters or racial connections inside media organizations themselves, mass communication is deeply involved with race. The Media in Black and White brings together twenty journalists and scholars, of various racial backgrounds, to grapple with a controversial issue: the role that media industries, from advertising to newspapers to the information superhighway, play in helping Americans understand race. Contributors include Ellis Cose, a contributing editor for Newsweek; Manning Marable, chairman of Columbia University's African-American Research Center; William Wong, a columnist for the Oakland Tribune; Lisa Penaloza, a University of Illinois professor; and Melita Marie Garza, a Chicago Tribune reporter. Among the topics discussed are: the quality of reporting on immigrant issues; how sensationalism may be deepening the chasm of misunderstanding between the races; how the coverage of America's drug wars has been marked by racism; and whether politically correct language is interfering with coverage of vital issues and problems. The contributors of The Media in Black and White hope to broaden the narrow vision of the United States and the world beyond with their contributions to the debate over race and the media. The commentary found hi this important work will be of interest to sociologists, communication specialists, and black studies scholars.

From Amos 'n' Andy to The Jeffersons to Family Matters to Chappelle's Show, this volume has all different genres—animation, documentaries, sitcoms, sports, talk shows, and variety shows—and performers such as Muhammad Ali, Louis Armstrong, Bill Cosby, and Oprah Winfrey. Additionally, information can be found on general issues ranging from African American audiences and stereotypes through the related networks and organizations. This second edition covers the history of African Americans on television from the beginning of national television through the present day including: chronology introductory essay appendixes bibliography over 1000 cross-referenced entries on actors, performers, producers, directors, news and sports journalists entries on series, specials and movies relevant to African American themes and African American casts This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the history of African-Americans and their impact on television.