Series
NET Journal
Episode Number
233
Episode
Black and White Together?
Producing Organization
National Educational Television and Radio Center
Contributing Organization
Library of Congress (Washington, District of Columbia)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/512-cf9j38mc5h
NOLA Code
BLWT
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/512-cf9j38mc5h).
Description
Episode Description
1 hour program, produced in 1969 by NET, originally shot on film in color.
Episode Description
This program studies Atlantic Citys Project WILL in the larger context of secondary school education in America today. The project, backed by $100,000 in Title I funds, was set up for two six-week periods at the Hotel Traymore on the boardwalk at Atlantic City. Here, some 80 students, black and white, engaged in a process of living and learning. Each of the students checked into the hotel daily after attending regular high school classes. The goals of the project: an effort to remove students from the totality of their environment; to foster interracial understanding and learning skills in a relaxed, though structured, atmosphere. The documentary is a report on the project its goals and its shortcomings. It focuses on Rod MacDonald, assistant director, who comes to recognize that to have change you must necessarily upset the static condition that exists. He is opposed in the projects regimen by director Edgar Harris. What right have these students got to evaluate me? Ive got my Masters and Im working on my PhD, he says, defending his hardline approach. Their opposing philosophies reflect a split within Project WILL, with many of the students contesting the value of the project and of their current education. Walking along the boardwalk, a student who has dropped out of Project WILL tells MacDonald: Its the educational system thats preparing us for the larger system. I could care less about the square of the hypotenuse. What motivation is there in high school? A key moment in the documentary shows the furor created by one girls statement: I wouldnt go out with a colored boy. Students and administrators are incensed by this bigotry, but MacDonald says: Its the first honest thing that happened here. MacDonald begins to understand the immensity of this job when he meets with black parents and confers with Sam Sanderson, former director of the Office of Evaluation, Sate of New Jersey. But by the second half of the project, he is encouraging students to protest and do it, then come see me, when they conduct a sleep-in for the right to bring in food at night. Near the end of the project, he and Harris are more obviously at odds. Harris, hardening his attitudes, interrupts an evaluation meeting to eject the NET camera crew in a climactic moment. Sanderson concludes: The program was written by adults under the guise of letting youngsters make their own decisions, but it didnt happen that way. Blacks and whites dont live together. Its pretty impossible to live together under the present system. NET Journal Black and White Together? is an NET production. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
Broadcast Date
1969-04-21
Asset type
Episode
Genres
Documentary
Topics
Education
Social Issues
Race and Ethnicity
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:59:22
Embed Code
Copy and paste this HTML to include AAPB content on your blog or webpage.
Credits
Associate Producer: Davidoff, Norma
Producer: McCutchen, Dick
Producing Organization: National Educational Television and Radio Center
Writer: McCutchen, Dick
AAPB Contributor Holdings
Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive
Identifier: [request film based on title] (Indiana University)
Format: 16mm film
Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive
Identifier: [request film based on title] (Indiana University)
Format: 16mm film
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2004966-1 (MAVIS Item ID)
Format: 2 inch videotape: Quad
Generation: Master
Color: Color
Duration: 0:59:00
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2004966-3 (MAVIS Item ID)
Generation: Copy: Access
Color: Color
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2004966-2 (MAVIS Item ID)
Generation: Master
Color: Color
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
Citations
Chicago: “NET Journal; 233; Black and White Together?,” 1969-04-21, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-cf9j38mc5h.
MLA: “NET Journal; 233; Black and White Together?.” 1969-04-21. Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-cf9j38mc5h>.
APA: NET Journal; 233; Black and White Together?. Boston, MA: Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-cf9j38mc5h