|
|
|  | | can't get HERE from THERE
The early 1970’s might have been the most appropriate time in America’s history to set up a radio news network for and about Blacks in the United States, more appropriate than any other time in the 20th century. The riots of the 1960’s, which had been installed as a legitimate dynamic of the Civil Rights Movement, were for the most part a thing of the past. The urban pockets of disfranchised citizens were no longer ablaze but the ashes were still smoldering. And everybody from the President to the Pope, and those in between, knew this condition could not be trusted to remain status quo without progressive maintenance.
Answering this call to duty came two young and ambitious black men to New York City, the headquarters location of all the major broadcast networks at that time. Eugene Jackson, an engineer with an MBA and Sydney Small, a business major, along with Del Raycee, a consummate veteran from the grandfather of all radio networks, Mutual Broadcasting, formed the National Black Network under a parent company called Unity Broadcasting, Inc.
African AmericanAnd while we are on the topic of brilliant performers, it is appropriate to mention that we came within a cat’s whisker of getting Sammy Davis, Jr. to do CEBA. In fact he had personally promised me that he would. As the story goes, the CEBA staff asked if I thought I could help in getting Sammy in the same fashion I had assisted in bringing the project to Tim Reid. Tim’s former partner, Tom Dreesen, would always see that I got to hang out with him and Sammy whenever they were in New York or any other city in which we would find ourselves at the same time. Tom Dre | |  | | That's Not Funny!
How come the Nation’s first Black and White stand up comedy team (Tim & Tom) couldn’t stay together?
Was it educational and cultural differences–or maybe one was funnier than the other?
Could it have been the Nation’s audiences weren’t ready for their approach to racial humor back in 1969?
It couldn’t have been something as commonplace as a woman coming between them...could it? The story is in the book!
|
|
|
|
I Was Just a Radioman
by Pamela Ackerson
|
 This is not a drill. The attack on Pearl. They were the ghost planes of the night, deadly, illusive, sharp-clawed Black Cats. The Memoirs of ARM H.P. Lawrence, a Pearl Harbor survivor, Black Cat, and decorated war veteran. |
Member BookAds
|
|
|
|
