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191 Conclusion “The true picture of America” The NAACP’s protest against Amos ’n’ Andy seemed to bring the association back to where it had started, vigorously protesting what it saw as the demeaning portrayal of African Americans in “mainstream” white American culture. There were similarities between its campaign against The Birth of a Nation in 1915 and Amos ’n’Andy in 1951. on both occasions the association was faced with a new medium and a growing industry in which African Americans had no power. It was so worried about the potential harm of these depictions of the race that it could see no alternative but to call for their complete removal from public view. It had only very limited success in both cases: the film was banned in some places but usually only temporarily; the show was dropped by the national network but continued to be shown locally for another decade. While the controversy over Amos ’n’ Andy was the last time the NAACP waged a campaign on the same scale as the fight over Birth, its cultural work did continue after the death of Walter White in 1955, through the leadership of Roy Wilkins and beyond. one of the first examples of Wilkins engaging with the entertainment industry once he had become executive secretary was his meeting with film executives and black actors in Hollywood in october 1957. He reassured his audience that the NAACP did not “censor” films or television programs, but he warned them that it “reserves the right to criticize productions deemed racially offensive” and urged “the casting of Negro performers in a range of roles representative of the position of the Negro in American life today.” In a clear echo of Walter White’s statement fifteen years earlier, Wilkins claimed that his organization had “never advocated a ban against the use of Negroes in comic or servant roles,” but it did “object to restricting them solely to such roles and to the perpetuation of the stereotype of the Negro as an illiterate, frightened buffoon.” He told the film industry that it was “passing up an opportunity to render a service to America” by failing to “present the true 192 Art for EquAlity picture of America on the changing status of the Negro in American life.” Wilkins also linked the black image in popular culture to recent events in the civil rights movement. “The dilemma in which American representatives abroad found themselves when the little Rock crisis broke might have been eased somewhat,” he claimed, “had the peoples of those countries been informed of recent progress made in race relations in this country .” Mary dudziak notes the importance of little Rock in how the rest of the world viewed and judged American race relations. The US government was particularly concerned that it was used as anti-American propaganda by the Soviets. Hollywood, Wilkins told industry leaders, had the opportunity to improve America’s image abroad.1 Five years later little progress had been made, and the NAACP believed that there was still important work to be done to improve the representation of the race. According to a resolution from the 1962 annual convention, the “proper factual, complete and wholesome portrayal of the Negro in newspapers, magazines, movies, television shows and in all other media has not yet been realized”; this was significant because “public opinion and attitudes are greatly influenced” by this image. The following year the convention called on African Americans to “refrain from purchasing the products of those who sponsor offensive television and radio programs, ignore the presence and achievements of American Negroes, or who refuse to give equal employment opportunities to Negroes.” Branches were urged to “organize protest demonstrations” at motion picture theaters and to challenge “the discrimination employment practices of motion picture companies and trade unions” in the entertainment industries. The association, then, was still taking a largely reactive approach to combating negative depictions, and it was using some of the same methods, including boycotts and protests. However, its focus was beginning to change, as it moved toward efforts to secure opportunities for African Americans within the creative industries more broadly. According to a 1963 press release, the association was engaged in “an all-out battle with the Hollywood craft unions over the almost total absence of Negro employment in those unions.” It had proposed “that one Negro in addition to the regular crews be hired for each movie and TV show in production” but this had been “curt[ly]” rejected...

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