Interview with Jon O. Brown
Civil Rights Activist

Q: Describe the first time you saw television.

Brown: Well, my first experience with television was at the New York World's Fair in 1939. They had a demonstration of television. It was just absolutely amazing -- you could stand in front of the cameras. They would take your picture in one room and then you could see it in the other room. They said this is going to be in every household soon. And I just couldn't believe it. I said well, this is experimental technology and this is about as far as it will go.

World War II came along after that and technological advances were put on hold. During the war, in Italy, there was an electrical engineer talking about what we could expect after the war was over. And he said, "You know, they have already perfected TV. They're going to have sporting events and things like that." I said "You've got to be joking." And he said, "Nope, it's already there. It's all set to go. All we have to do is end this war, and then they can start producing these machines." So I was just absolutely amazed that it wasn't until 1950, I believe, when I was doing my internship at Mahari Medical College, that we got together and got a TV set for the football games. Of course, everything was in black and white at that time. But it was absolutely amazing. Prior to that I'd gone to Chicago, I guess about 1948 or '49, and they were showing some pictures of the Chicago Cubs' baseball game. And I just knew this was absolutely fantastic. It was just like a new world.

Q: What did your first television set look like?

Brown: The first set that I was able to afford was about 1952 or '53 when we were down in Tuskegee, Alabama. Of course you could only get about two stations and you had to have a terrific antenna in order to tune them in.

We had one that sat on a little cabinet. It must have been about a 19-inch screen, black and white. We had some little gimmicks... you know how interns and residents in medicine always figure out little gimmicks... everything was in black and white so we took little colored sheets of cellophane, you know, and put them over the screen. And you would get some color.

Q: Did you feel that what you saw on television in the '50s represented you as an African-American?

Brown: No, in the early days of TV it definitely didn't. You didn't see black faces on television. The only program was Amos & Andy and that was taken from the old radio shows. Actors in black face played these parts and it was somewhat derogatory to African-Americans. I distinctly remember when Nat King Cole was given a half-hour variety show. They canceled it after about six or eight weeks because people were boycotting the sponsors.

It was just anti-black, everything was, and it definitely did not represent the African-American community. I guess the Ed Sullivan Show and a few shows like that would have a black entertainer. But we were very concerned that we had a country that was at least ten percent, probably twelve percent black and no representation. People from another country would come here and say, "Where are the black people?" I mean this did not represent America.

Q: Did people in the black community share news about blacks on television?

Brown: Yes, I think that all stemmed from the old radio days, the Joe Louis fights and everything. Whenever Joe Louis would fight people would gather and the whole town was just paralyzed. There would be no black workers around. All ears were on Joe Louis. And I think this carried over to television. Whenever you had a black performer on television people would gather around the few sets available in the community.

Q: Did you watch the Kennedy/Nixon debates? Did they affect your point of view at all?

Brown: Yes, I did watch those, and I think that won the election for Kennedy. He was such a charismatic person. He had the showmanship and his voice and everything. I think that really won the election for him if you discount the votes in Chicago.

It definitely did affect my vote. Kennedy was the first presidential candidate who really voiced the liberals' point of view. I think his showmanship and his presentation on TV in that debate made Kennedy.

Q: Everybody has a memory of where they were when they heard the news that Kennedy had been shot...

Brown: I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news that he had been shot. As I went to my office that morning people were talking about the reception in Fort Worth and that he was going to Dallas. About noon a friend called me at my office and told me that Kennedy had been shot. And I couldn't believe it. But then I put two and two together and I realized that it had happened, although I didn't want to believe it.

Those were very trying times because Kennedy represented the new image of America. I think this would have been a different country if Kennedy had remained president. At least he was voicing the programs that we were all in favor of. Now we know that later on Lyndon Johnson accomplished many things so far as the status of the blacks in this country and the war on poverty and things of this nature. It was his political savvy that got these things through Congress and made the country accept them. I don't know whether Kennedy could have done this or not. But on TV... I mean this man looked like he was the white knight who had come to save America.

Q: Television seemed to bring civil rights to the fore in America in some ways. What was your experience of this?

Brown: Television played a major role in the civil rights movement. I don't think that it would have succeeded in such a short period of time if it hadn't been for television. It let the rest of the country know exactly what was happening in the hardcore south. It also let southerners know what was happening... to see the images of dogs and police in Birmingham attacking black demonstrators, the freedom riders and things of this nature. Without television I don't think the country would have accepted all of this. Remember, the country had been well aware of lynchings since about 1901.

Television made the movement. There'd been pictures in newspapers of lynchings, and black people hanging and being burned and things of this nature. But it didn't have the impact of seeing [it] on television... dogs attacking people in Birmingham, the brutality of the police, the confrontation in Selma, Alabama and things like this...

Q: Do you think television hurt the movement a few years later?

Brown: Well, as they say in physics, for every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. I think that you did have a backlash to the civil rights movement. That was the reaction. Television showed this. And I think it was good for the movement.

Q: How did television affect your views on Vietnam?

Brown: I was a little disappointed when Dr. King got Vietnam mixed up with the civil rights movement in this country. I had come through World War II as a segregated infantry officer. We had our very trying moments during World War II. And many people had asked why we were there. In fact, the Germans used to drop propaganda from their planes in artillery shells. When they found out there was a black infantry division in Italy they showered us with pamphlets saying, "Why are you here? You need to be fighting back home." I remember one little pamphlet distinctly... it had a black mammy in Kentucky sitting down and someone plunking on a guitar and singing, "Old Folks At Home." This pamphlet said, "Men of the 92nd Division, don't you wish you were back there with your old folks at home? That's where you need to be, not over here fighting."

I had made up my mind that I wanted to fight this war and it would give me the fuel to come back to this country and say that I had put my life on the line for America. When they made Vietnam an issue, I was not sympathetic with them initially. But then, as a result of seeing on TV the way the Vietnamese people were treated, the massacres and all of this, it brought about a change in my way of thinking. Of course, I analyzed many other factors but, by the end of the Vietnam War, I was just as anti- war as any of the others were.

Q: Television showed us a man walking on the face of the moon for the first time. Where did you watch and what were your feelings?

Brown: Well, my feelings were somewhat mixed. In the first place, there was some doubt in my mind as to whether the man was actually walking on the moon or not. As far as the expense was concerned, we felt that many of those dollars could be spent more wisely back home. I mean why, if you could get a man on the moon, couldn't you get a black man to sit down at a lunch counter and be fed? People needed to be clothed and housed properly. We were proud of the technology, but there were doubts in our community as to whether this was the expedient thing to do.

Q: You live in Miami. Did you ever watch "Miami Vice?"

Brown: Yes, I most certainly did, but I had mixed emotions about it. I'm against a lot of violence, although I'm an old war veteran myself and I went through a whole lot. But so far as domestic violence is concerned, I'm definitely anti-violence. "Miami Vice" was popular throughout the country and it showed Miami as the center of crime. It was a wealthy area, a beautiful area... it showed beautiful pictures of Miami Beach but many of the places where they filmed was not the true Miami. We were glad for the publicity because of tourism. Tourism is the foundation of the economy in Miami. The show certainly did get people here -- they came down to see if it was true.

Q: Do you have other particular television memories?

Brown: I think the civil rights movement was probably the highlight of my television experience. We didn't have the hard core opposition here in Miami that you had in Birmingham, Memphis, Selma and Montgomery... but certainly we were a part of it and our role here is well documented. Many people are still unaware of the resistance that did exist here in Miami. But it's well documented by television and we're very proud of it.

Q: When you're captured on television it does hold up an image for the world to see...

Brown: Yes. Miami was trying to protect its tourism. So the city made an effort to keep negative images off the television. We had a couple of incidents where people were involved in little altercations. But they tried to keep those away from the television cameras. And elected officials and community leaders made sure that these things didn't happen here in Miami.

Q: What do you personally take pleasure in on television these days?

Brown: News and sporting events. My father was a football coach in high school and I've kept up with football. The exposure that football gets on television now gives me a big thrill and I follow it religiously. And of course basketball is almost as enticing and alluring to me. I get a big kick out of the sporting events and also the news. I like to keep up-to-date on news and documentaries. That's where most of my emphasis is.

Q: What are your thoughts about the importance of television today?

Brown: Television plays a very important role in everybody's life now. The news is up-to-date, you see things that are happening all over the world. You get different points of view. But I am very much concerned about the amount of violence that's depicted on television, and the effect that it has on the youngsters. It's an unreal world. You see somebody come out with his Uzi and kill eight or ten people, and then he runs into two or three automobiles and a bomb explodes somewhere. And then it's all over. At the end of the hour, it's forgotten by mature people. But youngsters see this... especially the 12 and 13 year olds... and they go out and imitate these things. If they don't have parental guidance or guidance from community organizations and recreational things to do, they imitate these things. We have this increase in gangs now and the violence that comes out of gang warfare. These are things that I think come from television.

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