On this day in 1928, Radio program Amos ‘n’ Andy first airs. A precursor of the show, called Sam N Henry, had premiered on Chicago radio in 1926. Both programs starred white performers Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll as two black characters during the Depression. The show drew more than 40 million listeners during its run, which lasted until 1948, becoming the most highly rated comedy in radio history, but was later reviled for its exploitation of negative black stereotypes. A TV version of Amos ‘n’ Andy ran from 1951 to 1953, starring black actors Alvin Childress and Spencer Williams.The NAACP protested both the radio and TV series for promoting racial stereotypes, but the protests did not dampen the popularity of the shows. Amos ‘n’ Andy ran in reruns for many years around the world until the government of Kenya banned the program in 1963. This action renewed protests in the United States, and CBS finally withdrew the program from circulation. A sequel to Amos ‘n’ Andy disguised as a cartoon-Calvin and the Colonel-debuted in 1961, featuring a fox and a bear from the deep South who moved into a large city in the North. The show’s creators and principal voices were the same actors who played Amos and Andy on the radio.
Not long after Calvin and the Colonel debuted, Bill Cosby became the first black performer to star in a regular dramatic series. His lighthearted adventure and espionage show, I Spy, ran from 1965 through 1968. For his role as a secret agent, Cosby won Best Actor Emmy awards in 1966, 1967, and 1968. The successful show was the first to depict a natural working relationship between a white man and a black man. Cosby went on to star in a variety of popular television series and movies, breaking down racial barriers that had dominated Hollywood throughout most of the 20th century, and becoming one of the biggest television stars of his time. Before then, black actors had typically been offered only stereotypical roles and were usually portrayed as the people who worked as servants to white people. Indeed, the first Academy Award presented to an African-American actor was for the popular 1939 film Gone with the Wind, in which Hattie McDaniel was honored for her role as Scarlett O’Hara’s slave.
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