Article Excerpt About Ed Sullivan Breaking Color Barriers By Featuring Black Entertainers On His TV Series (with a clip of James Brown Performing on that show)

The Ed Sullivan Show, June 30, 2020

James Brown "Medley: Papa's Got A Brand New Bag & I Got You (I Feel Good)" performed on The Ed Sullivan Show May 1, 1966....
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Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases a 1966 film clip of R&B singer James Brown performing a medley of his hits on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Information about Ed Sullivan is presented in this post along with an article excerpt about a documentary of Ed Sullivan and Black entertainers.

The content of this post is presented for historical, socio-cultural, educational, and entertainment purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Ed Sullivan for his cultural legacy. Thanks also to James Brown for his musical legacy and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

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INFORMATION ABOUT ED SULLIVAN

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Sullivan
"Edward Vincent Sullivan (September 28, 1901 – October 13, 1974) was an American television personality, impresario,[2] sports and entertainment reporter, and syndicated columnist for the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. He was the creator and host of the television variety program The Toast of the Town, which in 1955 was renamed The Ed Sullivan Show. Broadcast from 1948 to 1971, it set a record as the longest-running variety show in US broadcast history.[3] "It was, by almost any measure, the last great TV show," said television critic David Hinckley. "It's one of our fondest, dearest pop culture memories.

[...]

Early life and career

Edward Vincent Sullivan was born on September 28, 1901, in Harlem, New York City: the son of Elizabeth F. (née Smith) and Peter Arthur Sullivan, a customs house employee. He grew up in Port Chester, New York, where the family lived in a small red brick home at 53 Washington Street.[7] He was of Irish descent.

[...]

Sullivan had an appreciation for African American talent. According to biographer Gerald Nachman, "Most TV variety shows welcomed 'acceptable' black superstars like Louis Armstrong, Pearl Bailey and Sammy Davis Jr. ... but in the early 1950s, long before it was fashionable, Sullivan was presenting the much more obscure black entertainers he had enjoyed in Harlem on his uptown rounds— legends like Peg Leg Bates, Pigmeat Markham and Tim Moore ... strangers to white America."[24] He hosted pioneering TV appearances by Bo Diddley, the Platters, Brook Benton, Jackie Wilson, Fats Domino, and numerous Motown acts, including the Supremes, who appeared 17 times.[25] As the critic John Leonard wrote, "There wasn't an important black artist who didn't appear on Ed's show."[26]

He defied pressure to exclude African American entertainers, and to avoid interacting with them when they did appear. "Sullivan had to fend off his hard-won sponsor, Ford's Lincoln dealers, after kissing Pearl Bailey on the cheek and daring to shake Nat King Cole's hand," Nachman wrote.[27] According to biographer Jerry Bowles, "Sullivan once had a Ford executive thrown out of the theatre when he suggested that Sullivan stop booking so many black acts. And a dealer in Cleveland told him 'We realize that you got to have ni&&ers* on your show. But do you have to put your arm around Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson at the end of his dance?' Sullivan had to be physically restrained from beating the man to a pulp."[28] Sullivan later raised money to help pay for Robinson's funeral.[29] "As a Catholic, it was inevitable that I would despise intolerance, because Catholics suffered more than their share of it," he told an interviewer. "As I grew up, the causes of minorities were part and parcel of me. Negroes and Jews were the minority causes closest at hand. I need no urging to take a plunge in and help."[30]"...
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*This word is fully spelled out in that Wikipedia page.

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ARTICLE EXCERPT: "SULLIVISION": DOC EXAMINES IMPACT OF "THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW" ON BLACK ENTERTAINERS
From: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/ed-sullivan-n782646  July 15, 2017, 5:11 PM EDT By Dorean K. Collins
"Diahann Carroll's daughter and Ed Sullivan's granddaughter made a documentary about The Ed Sullivan Show's impact on Black entertainers.

… [Ed Sullivan’s granddaughter Margo] Precht Speciale and Kay teamed up to produce the upcoming documentary, "Sullivison: Ed Sullivan and the Struggle for Civil Rights." The film will explore Sullivan’s passion for entertainment and the ways in which he used his platform to acknowledge Black artists during a time when they weren't completely welcomed in prime time.

It will also explore the impact the show had during the dawn of television at the height of the Civil Rights movement, and the ways in which artists today can use their platforms to drive social justice.

… This exposure was rare in a time where black artists and entertainers were facing discrimination in the entertainment industry, and in society.

The documentary weaves together interviews from stars like Harry Belafonte, Diahann Carroll, Diana Ross, Oprah Winfrey and many more whose careers were launched on the Sullivan show or who grew up watching the show.

In one interview, Berry Gordy credits Sullivan with giving him a venue to launch Motown.

Oprah Winfrey describes the impact the show had on her as a young girl. “Imagine me being ten years old and my family on welfare. You don’t understand what it’s like to be in a world where nobody looks like you. When I first saw Diana Ross looking glamorous and beautiful, it represented possibility and hope. It was life changing,” Winfrey says in the documentary.

Born in a racially diverse community in New York City, Precht Speciale says Sullivan never allowed race or religion to affect his appreciation for humanity.

As a newspaper columnist, Sullivan focused on stories that affected the black community. “He took up the cause of the Black team that wasn’t allowed to play in the town, or if he ever saw anything that he felt was injustice towards Blacks he seemed to step in,” says Kay.

Sullivan’s writing chops led him to author a Broadway column, a gig that was truly right up his alley. “He loved the nightlife, he would be out till all hours, going to the nightclubs and watching different acts, and he became very familiar and fond of vaudeville,” says Precht Speciale.

Sullivan went on to produce the Harlem Cavalcade, in 1942, a vaudeville revue in two acts. The show was billed as a "colored only" production and Sullivan was the only white producer. When the show was failing, Sullivan paid out of his own pocket to keep it going.

His dedication to this art form went beyond the stage, as he formed relationships with black performers that he would later feature on the Ed Sullivan Show.

“When he first started his show they were given very little money, and a lot of the vaudeville stars, Black and white, came to his aide and would come on the show for very little,” said Precht Speciale, adding that when the show reached huge success in the 60's, Sullivan continued to bring those vaudeville stars on, baffling many. “He knew that just one appearance on his show would pay their rent, and help support their family, and that kind of loyalty continues, which I thought was a wonderful thing to learn.”

Precht Speciale and Kay say that Sullivan's authentic, "every-man” demeanor skyrocketed him to success. 75 million Americans watched his show every Sunday night. The first episode aired June 20, 1948, and Sullivan's first black guests were Billy Kenny and the Ink Spots, on June 27, 1948.

Stars like Diana Ross, Harry Belafonte, James Brown and Kay’s mother, Diahann Carroll graced the screens of millions of American television sets — entering homes and subtly breaking racial barriers.

In an interview with Harry Belafonte, Kay was surprised to learn how much Belafonte credited the show with being a part of the civil rights moment. As Kay tells it, he said it "helped awaken America to a different vision of what black people can be so that when these images came on the screen later of abuse and the beatings as people protested in the South, they had these other images of these very strong, talented, dignified people. And you couldn’t sell them on the idea so easily that black people were subhuman once you had seen these other images on Sullivan.”

Not everyone was so easily convinced. The show received angry letters from viewers when Sullivan kissed Pearl Bailey, shook hands with Nat King Cole or showed affection towards Sarah Vaughn.

One Alabama advertiser asked newspaper readers to stop watching The Ed Sullivan Show. Ford Motors threatened to pull their sponsorship and remove the Ed Sullivan show from airing in the South.

Southern gas stations even refused to serve car owners who drove Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models that Sullivan promoted.

None of this negativity affected Sullivan. “He really treated those Black performers on his show with the dignity and respect that he would want as a person, and through that he was challenging America to do the same. That’s kind of the bottom line,” says Precht Speciale."
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This article includes additional text and photographs.

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