The temperature in San Antonio, Texas is 102 degrees in the afternoon these days. I’ll Bet Brownsville is even hotter. Stay cool and read more science fiction. Check out my first and recently released novel, Long Journey to Rneadal. This exciting tale is a romantic action adventure in space and is more about the characters than the technology.

Respectfully, this is also completely wrong. The integration of African-Americans into mainstream films began in 1949; see here for a long list of examples, such as :
* Cry, the Beloved Country, 1951
* Go Man Go, 1954
* Goodby, My Lady, 1956
* Edge of the City, 1957
* Something of Value, 1957
* The Defiant Ones, 1958, with Tony Curtis
* Porgy and Bess, 1959
* Paris Blues, 1961
* A Raisin in the Sun, 1961
* Pressure Point, 1962
# Lilies of the Field, 1963 *
# The Bedford Incident, 1965
# A Patch of Blue, 1965

And that’s just with Sidney Poitier! Continuing to quote:

[...] Harry Belafonte, Mel Ferrer, and Inger Stevens starred in The World, The Flesh and the Devil in 1959; Odds Against Tomorrow, also in 1959, starred Harry Belafonte with Robert Ryan, Shelley Winters, Cicely Tyson, and Carmen DeLavallade. The classic film, Nothing But a Man, came out in 1963 starring Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln, and Gloria Foster. In 1964, interracial romance and marriage was the plot of One Potato, Two Potato, starring Bernie Hamilton and Barbara Barrie. Miss Barrie won the best actress award for the film at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1964, Hollywood produced Black Like Me, a movie based upon the true life experience and book written by John Howard Griffin published in 1961. The movie version starred James Whitmore as John Howard Griffin and Roscoe Lee Brown. The Jazz musician world was brought to the silver screen when Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra Jr., Ossie Davis, Cicely Tyson, Mel Torme, and Peter Lawford appeared together in A Man Called Adam in 1966. Also in 1966, Woody Strode, the veteran actor, appeared in The Professionals along with Claudia Cardinal and Lee Marvin, and 1967 saw Al Freeman Jr. and Shirley Knight in The Dutchman.

And so on.

Whereas I, Spy the first drama to respectfully portray an African-American as an equal to a light-skinned American didn’t come on the air until 1965, and Star Trek, in which Uhura was a minor role, until 1966. Julia, the first American tv show to respectfully show and individual star an African-American didn’t premiere until 1968.

Before that, all there was on American tv by way of African-Americans were Beulah — originally portrayed by white actresses, in which she played a servant, and Amos ‘n Andy.

Outside drama and sitcoms, there was the brief blip of The Nat King Cole variety show in 1957, but that only lasted a few months, and wasn’t a drama. And that’s it for tv and African-Americans until the late Sixties. So movies definitely came way before tv in leading the way for African-Americans to play major roles, speak out against racism, and star in vehicles.

The second book of the Earthsea series, The Tombs of Atuan was the book that convinced me I wanted to become a writer. If there are other Earthsea fans out there, you might want to check this out:

http://blip.tv/file/1721545

It’s Ms. LeGuin (who I am proud to say is a member of Book View Cafe) reading from Earthsea.

I ask not knowing if or how popular this series was when it was actually on.