Pioneering Women of Color: TV Women Blacklisted

By Cynthia Bemis Abrams | 08/09/2019

This 4-episode series examines anti-communism/McCarthyism blacklisting’s impact on the careers of women who likely would have changed the look, depth, and sound of TV. Host Cynthia Bemis Abrams and author/scholar, Dr. Charlene Regester of the University of North Carolina, have a frank conversation about how racism, stereotyped roles, and Jim Crow laws delayed TV’s depiction of Black life by more than a decade.

This adds to the story of a previous podcast episode about TV’s Single Women and how even in the 1980s, a TV series cast a black woman as a household domestic.

Resources Mentioned:

Charlene Regester (2010) African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility 1900-1960. Indiana University Press.

Carol Stabile (2018) The Broadcast 41: Women and the Anti-Communist Blacklist

James Gavin (2010) Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne

Advanced TV Herstory‘s episode: TV’s Single Woman Caregivers & Gimme a Break

https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/a2e5bfdd-b084-405c-9897-d486f922c123.mp3

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