NET Journal; A Time for Burning
- Series
- NET Journal
- Episode Number
- 122
- Episode Number
- 105
- Episode
- A Time for Burning
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/516-n58cf9k83p
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- Description
- Episode Description
- One hour program produced on videotape.
- Episode Description
- We would like to call your attention to an exceptional documentary. Its theme is contemporary, and its technique endows it with unusual drama. As non-fiction, it is being filmed as it happens, and its participants are people in crisis.2028"If we do not start now as a church, then the world is going to pass us by on the biggest issue of our time." The issue is race relations. The setting is Omaha, Nebraska, an average American city. The speaker is Lutheran Pastor Bill Youngdahl, who splits his congregation and eventually relinquishes his position after attempting to make "the smallest step -- a dialogue between the races." Bill Youngdahl is one of the principals in "A Time for Burning," a dramatic documentary filmed as it evolved -- in the churches and living rooms and barbershops of Omaha. Applying the technique of cinema verite (film truth), producer William C. Jersey spent four months in the Nebraska city, capturing the conflicts of the people on both sides of the racial curtain. Pastor Youngdahl ignites the drama when he suggests interracial home visits between members of Augustana Lutheran Church and Negro families in the ghetto which begins a mere three blocks away. His suggestion is met by caution from members of the social action committee -- "Let's take one step at a time ... "Let's keep the congregation intact." Local Negroes are equally skeptical. "It's just an excursion across the line for you, says a bitterly eloquent barber. "If you do anything, you'll get kicked out of your church. The church leaders are hesitant. Then, an exchange visit by a group of Negro teenagers from Calvin Memorial sets Youngdahls church in uproar. Parishioners threaten to leave, the power group expresses its dissatisfaction, and the frustrated Youngdahl resigns. But the drama continues. A council member quits his vacillation and stands "in the company of the committed, "with those in the community who have accepted the challenge of change. The documentary ends with a Negro choir singing "There is a fire in me somewhere -- a fire to set me free, while several blocks away a white congregation partakes of its sacrament of communion. The city of Omaha was chosen for this incisive look at racial relations since it was "America in microcosm" -- with Negroes comprising some 10 percent of the population, virtually all of them inhabiting a ghetto, while "the other 90 percent" have had little contact with the Negro and his problems. Prophetically, the documentary comments on the proliferating tensions which resulted in outbursts of violence in July, after the show's completion. N.E.T, JOURNALA TIME FOR BURNING is a 1966 National Educational Television presentation, produced by William C. Jersey of Quest Productions, Inc. Robert E. A. Lee, executive secretary of Lutheran Film Associates, was executive producer. NET Producer: Michael Brooks This work aired as NET Journal episode 105 on October 17, 1966 and as NET Journal episode 122 on February 13, 1967, (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
- Broadcast Date
- 1967-02-13
- Broadcast Date
- 1966-10-17
- Asset type
- Episode
- Genres
- Documentary
- Topics
- Race and Ethnicity
- Religion
- Media type
- other
- Credits
-
-
Executive Producer: Lee, Robert E. A.
Producer: Brooks, Michael
Producer: Jersey, William C.
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
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- Citations
- Chicago: “NET Journal; A Time for Burning,” 1967-02-13, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed April 25, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-516-n58cf9k83p.
- MLA: “NET Journal; A Time for Burning.” 1967-02-13. American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. April 25, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-516-n58cf9k83p>.
- APA: NET Journal; A Time for Burning. Boston, MA: American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-516-n58cf9k83p