Once Lost, Painfully Present: Maya Angelou’s Blacks, Blues, Black! (1968)

Dr. Maya Angelou’s Blacks, Blues, Black! was a triumph of Civil Rights-era public affairs television, produced and aired amid nationwide uprisings in the immediate wake of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968. Blacks, Blues, Black! promoted Black unity, education, liberation, and culture. However, after it aired, the show’s tapes were lost for decades and only rediscovered by chance in 2009. With its rediscovery, the program reveals similarities between state-sanctioned violence against Black people in 1968 and today while introducing a new generation of viewers to Angelou’s enduring insights and strategic sensibility.

This talk sets forth a rewriting of media history about lost archives, Black visibility, creative autonomy, publicly funded media, and popular education television. In addition, we will analyze the specific lessons arising from the educational content of Blacks, Blues, Black!, the African origins of Black cultural forms/practices, and Black unity, offering strategic insight into combating temporal state violence against Black bodies.

The presentation will include a discussion of the legal landscape for Black media outlets during the late 60’s and early 70’s. Pressing legal questions and relevant legal cases regarding Black America and the media will be examined.

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