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The Nicest Kids in Town

Matt Delmont, Author

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Notes for History of Segregation on American Bandstand

[i] Joan Cannady (Countryman), interviewed by author, February 27, 2006, transcript in author’s possession.
[ii] Iona Stroman (Billups), interviewed by author, July 16, 2007, transcript in author’s possession.
[iii] McDougal interview.
[iv] Julian Bond, “The Media and the Movement,” in Media, Culture, and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle, ed. Brian Ward (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001), 27.
[v] On the coverage of American Bandstand in the black press, see “Dick Clark ‘Bandstand’ Spotlights Sepia Aces,” Chicago Defender, August 8, 1959; “TV Guide,” New York Amsterdam News, February 28, 1959; “Television Program,” Atlanta Daily World, November 21, 1957; “Tonight’s Pix-Viewing,” Chicago Daily Defender, May 12, 1959; “Dick Clark Spotlight James Brown’s Flames,” Chicago Defender, October 29, 1960; “Dick Clark TV Guests ‘Names,’” Chicago Defender, January 14, 1961; “TV Guide,” New York Amsterdam News, February 18, 1961; “Bobby Bland set for ‘American Bandstand,’” Chicago Daily Defender, March 15, 1961; “TV Guide,” New York Amsterdam News, March 25, 1961; “TV Tapes,” Chicago Daily Defender, August 7, 1961; “What’s On TV?,” New York Amsterdam News, December 9, 1961; “TV Hi-Lites,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 13, 1962; “TV Hi-Lites,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 17, 1962; “TV Hi-Lites,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 28, 1962.
[vi] Palmer interview.
[vii] Palmer interview; CHR, “Present Status of Current ‘C’ Cases,” May 4, 1954, CHR collection, Box A-2860, folder 148.2 “Minutes 1953-1957,” PCA; CHR, “Intergroup Tensions in Recreation Facilities,” March 7, 1955, NAACP collection, URB 6, box 4, folder 104, TUUA. On these efforts to integrate Bandstand in the early-1950s, see chapter one.
[viii] Art Peters, “No Negroes On Bandstand Show, TV Boss Says They’re Welcome,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 22, 1956.
[ix] Ibid.
[x] Allen, Talking to Strangers, 4.
[xi] Stroman (Billups) interview.
[xii] On the controversy of interracial dancing on Alan Freed’s show Jackson, Big Beat Heat, 168-169. On the related concerns over interracial themes in film, see Susan Courtney, Hollywood Fantasies of Miscegenation: Spectacular Narratives of Gender and Race, 1903-1967 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).
[xiii] Gael Greene, “Dick Clark,” New York Post, September 24, 1958.
[xiv] “Mr. Clark and Colored Payola,” New York Age, December 5, 1959, p. 6.
[xv] Johnny Otis, “Johnny Otis Says Let’s Talk,” Los Angeles Sentinel, January 28, 1960; Masco Young, “They’re Talking About,” Philadelphia Tribune, February 20, 1960.
[xvi] Sullivan interview.
[xvii] Joe Fusco, interviewed by author, August 8, 2006, transcript in author’s possession.
[xviii] Smith interview.
[xix] “Teen Agers Claim Discrimination On Clark’s Band Stand,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 8, 1959; “Girl, 14, Says She, Friends Were Barred From Dick Clark TV Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 21, 1961.
[xx] Dorthy Anderson, “Strictly Politics,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 23, 1958; “Readers Say: ‘All the Uncle Toms Have Moved Up North,’” Philadelphia Tribune, July 12, 1960; “Teenagers Talented,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 2, 1963; E. Washington Rhodes, “Where are the Parents of ‘Bandstand’s’ Youth?,” Philadelphia Tribune, Jan 14, 1958; “Tribune Readers Say: Stop Imitating Others’ Errors,” Philadelphia Tribune, February 4, 1958; “Tribune’s Open Forum,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 2, 1960; “Readers Say: Protests Same Old White Faces on Dick Clark TV Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 17, 1961.
[xxi] Henry Gordon, interviewed by author, June 6, 2006, transcript in author’s possession.
[xxii] “dick clark media archive,” http://www.dickclarklicensing.com (accessed October 15, 2010).
[xxiii] The list of available clips from American Bandstand in this era include: “American Bandstand,” December 2, 1957 (video recording), Acc T86:0317, Museum of Television and Radio (MTR); “American Bandstand,” December 17, 1957 (video recording), Acc T86:0318, MTR; “American Bandstand: 25th Anniversary,” February 4, 1977 (video recording), Acc T79:0274, MTR; “American Bandstand: 40th Anniversary,” May 13, 1992 (video recording), Acc B:25885, MTR; “American Bandstand: 50th Anniversary,” May 3, 2002 (video recording), Acc B:71426, MTR; Twist, dir. Ron Mann (Sphinx Productions, 1992); Bandstand Days (Teleduction, 1997); American Dreams, dir. Jonathan Prince (Universal Studios, 2004) (DVD, 7 discs). The “Bandstand Moments” DVD included with the 50th Anniversary box set only includes footage from the period after the show moved to Los Angeles.
[xxiv] One of the pictures appears in both of Dick Clark’s histories of the show, see Shore and Clark, The History of American Bandstand, 46; Clark and Bronson, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, 56-7. The second picture is in the 50th Anniversary box set booklet, see Fred Bronson, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand 50th Anniversary (New York: Time Life, 2007), 40.
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