After a decadelong hiatus, African Americans once again began appearing regularly on television in the 1960s. Bill Cosby costarred on I Spy, Sammy Davis Jr. briefly hosted a variety show, and in 1968 Diahann Carroll debuted in the title role of Julia, the first television series to star an African American since the cancellation of Amos ’n’ Andy. Over the next ten years, shows with African American casts became more common; some, like Sanford and Son and Good Times, were hits with both black and white audiences. Yet many within the black community criticize these programs as perpetuating demeaning stereotypes and hampering the political progress made by African Americans. 

In Revolution Televised, Christine Acham offers a more complex reading of this period in African American television history, finding within these programs opposition to dominant white constructions of African American identity. She explores the intersection of popular television and race as witnessed from the documentary coverage of the civil rights and Black Power movements, the personal politics of Flip Wilson and Soul Train’s Don Cornelius, and the ways in which notorious X-rated comic Redd Foxx reinvented himself for prime time. 

Reflecting on both the potential of television to effect social change as well as its limitations, Acham concludes with analyses of Richard Pryor’s politically charged and short-lived sketch comedy show and the success of outspoken comic Chris Rock. Revolution Televised deftly illustrates how black television artists operated within the constraints of the television industry to resist and ultimately shape the mass media’s portrayal of African American life. 

Christine Acham is assistant professor in African American and African studies at the University of California, Davis.

 2013 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

Television scholarship has substantially ignored programming aimed at Black audiences despite a few sweeping histories and critiques. In this volume, the first of its kind, contributors examine the televisual diversity, complexity, and cultural imperatives manifest in programming directed at a Black and marginalized audience.

Watching While Black considers its subject from an entirely new angle in an attempt to understand the lives, motivations, distinctions, kindred lines, and individuality of various Black groups and suggest what television might be like if such diversity permeated beyond specialized enclaves. It looks at the macro structures of ownership, producing, casting, and advertising that all inform production, and then delves into television programming crafted to appeal to black audiences—historic and contemporary, domestic and worldwide.

Chapters rethink such historically significant programs as Roots and Black Journal, such seemingly innocuous programs as Fat Albert and bro’Town, and such contemporary and culturally complicated programs as Noah’s Arc, Treme, and The Boondocks. The book makes a case for the centrality of these programs while always recognizing the racial dynamics that continue to shape Black representation on the small screen.  Painting a decidedly introspective portrait across forty years of Black television, Watching While Black sheds much-needed light on under-examined demographics, broadens common audience considerations, and gives deference to the the preferences of audiences and producers of Black-targeted programming.