Black Americans have a fine and honourable history in journalism. The first black Newspaper in the USA was launched in 1827, when John B. Russwurm and Samuel E. Cornish began the Freedom's Journal, which supported the abolition of slavery.
The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s showed the great wealth of creative talent that was pooled in Black Americans in literature, music and the arts. Poets and writers such as James Weldon Johnson and Claude McKay are quoted to this day.
It was during the 1920s that some of the great black performers of the 20th century began their work - such as Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, Ethel Waters and Roland Hayes.
However, in a white dominated society, the achievements of black artists were often unrecognised - except as entertainers... and often then as caricatures of themselves.
Most people in the English speaking world only heard black people in one of two roles - as a down-at-heel servant, or as part of a minstrel show. In the UK, radio shows such as The Kentucky Minstrels ran until the late 1940s, reinforcing these stereotypical images. The BBC's Black and White Minstrel Show was one of the Corporation's most popular programmes through the fifties and sixties (and still runs on stage around the country to this day) despite vocal complaints from the black community.
The first black American to be given his own network TV show was Nat King Cole in 1956, the pianist and singer. The shows didn't prove to be a hit with the public, despite Cole's impressive talent, and it was nearly a decade before other black Americans were given their chance.
One of the first top-ranking black stars (who still, of course remains at the very top of his profession) is Bill Cosby. Cosby starred with Robert Culp in the comedy-drama series I Spy in the mid-sixties, collecting three Emmys along the way. Cosby's undoubted talents took him into the position of being one of America's best loved TV faces. The Cosby Show was consistently one of the highest performers in terms of ratings throughout the 1980s and '90s, despite complaints from some quarters that it was too "cosy," and not a true reflection of life for Black Americans. That's as may be, the show's funny, well written and well acted.
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