On the radio, audiences can't see that you're not wearing blackface.

But once your popular radio show portraying disparaging stereotypes of African Americans moves to television, some adjustments will have to be made in the casting. 

Such was the case for Amos-n-Andy, one of the most popular shows on radio in the 1930s. The show was created by two white veterans of vaudeville, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll.  

Gosden and Correll could get away with their act on radio without the need for the exaggerated "blackface" makeup they'd used in their live minstrel shows.  But when CBS migrated the show to television in 1951, even the addition of the first all-black cast in television history was nothing enough to evade the howls of objection from organizations like the NAACP. 

The original Amos-n-Andy only made 65 episodes for television and was quietly canceled in 1953.  It continued to run in syndication well into the 60s, but now can be found only YouTube. 

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Visit: https://100YearsTV.com 

Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1

Chapters

• (00:00:00) - We Should Have Laughed at Edison
• (00:00:21) - Amos and Andy: The 100th Anniversary of Television
• (00:05:10) - Amos and Andy: A Controversy on TV
• (00:12:52) - Amos and Andy: The Legacy of Television
• (00:15:21) - 100 Years of Television