Opinion from Dean L. Jones:
I was born at the time when offended blacks encouraged advertisers and television producers to purge the successful Amos ‘n Andy comedy from airing. The foundation stem around how black characters were the imagination of white writers and poorly depicted blacks [Negroes] for a TV show.
Alvin Childress (Amos), Spencer Williams (Andy – Andrew Hogg Brown), Tim Moore (George “Kingfish” Stevens), Ernestine Wade (Sapphire Stevens), Amanda Randolph (Ramona Smith – Sapphire’s Mother), Lillian Randolph (Madame Queen), Johnny Lee (Algonquin J. Calhoun), Nick Stewart (Lightnin’ billed as “Nick O’Demus”), and Jane Adams (Ruby Jones) all lost their jobs from disconcerted blacks.
Had there been a replacement or remedy in the script writing, perhaps these quality actors would have continued their television career. Unfortunately, all of these actors were sacrificed and sent to a television career slump. With the exception where Amanda Randolph landed a job on Danny Thomas’ Make Room for Daddy portraying the household maid, and ironically comecally speaking no different than she did so well on Amos ‘n Andy.
Instead, it was more than twenty years later before blacks were reentered in numbers television series on such shows as Sanford and Sons, Good Times, The Jeffersons, What’s Happening, That’s My Mama, and Diff’rent Strokes. The acting or the character composites were of no higher caliber than Amos ‘n Andy, but the blacks felt it was time to get a job in front of the camaera no matter what the role. It was just comedy and the roles were not meant to represent blacks in general.
This leads me to see how today blacks are moving to cut off the ‘Oscar Progress’ nose to spite the ‘black cinema’ face.
