Ed Sullivan, an unsung civil rights champion

Fox News

7 days ago

When I think of Ed Sullivan, what flashes first to my mind is Feb. 9, 1964, as I sat watching with my parents on a large black-and-white TV – as we all did in those days – and he gave a wave to introduce the Beatles.
I even scribbled it down in my journal, with a small sketch of a long-haired dude singing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand."
But it turns out that the host – who drew as many as 50 million viewers on Sunday nights, which will never be repeated – did something far, far more important than launch John, Paul, George and Ringo in America.
The Daily News columnist was a civil rights leader, and an aggressive one at that.
This was no secret to those who closely followed Sullivan, and especially in the Black community.
But a new Netflix documentary, "Sunday Best," filled with riveting archival footage, makes clear how many backstage battles Sullivan had to fight, including with his own network, and how CBS acted shamefully.
Even the sainted Edward R. Murrow praised Sullivan in an interview for his celebrity show.
Black Americans in those years rarely appeared on television, except in small, buffoonish roles, leaving aside Amos 'n Andy in blackface. That didn't change until 1965, when a pre-scandal Bill Cosby co-starred in "I Spy."
CBS suits were right that Sullivan could lose viewers in the South, which was then a hotbed of racism. The KKK marched openly. It was a Ku Klux Klan organizer who wrote George Wallace's infamous line, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"
Sure, we know all about Rosa Parks, who wouldn't give up her seat on the bus, the use of firehoses against Black protesters, the brutal beatings on Bloody Sunday in Selma.
But seeing it from this perspective is a heart-stopping reminder of how much stark bigotry stained the country.
Sullivan, who grew up poor in Harlem when it was largely Italian and Jewish, was covering a football game as sports editor of the New York Evening Graphic in 1929. It was NYU versus the University of Georgia, to be played in New York. And the Georgians had a demand.
"I was sickened to read NYU's agreement to bench a Negro player for the entire game…If a New York university allows the Mason Dixon Line to be erected in the center of its playing field," Sullivan wrote, "then that university should disband its football season for all time."
So after launching his show in 1948, at the dawn of television, what was Sullivan's great sin?
He put Black entertainers on the air.
We're talking Harry Belafonte, Nat King Cole, James Brown, Gladys Knight, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Diana Ross, Bo Diddley, a child prodigy named Stevie Wonder – the superstars of their era.
Behind the scenes, CBS's conduct was pathetic. Executives urged Sullivan not to shake hands with the Black entertainers, not to put his arm around them, to keep his distance. He basically ignored them. He took heat from Ford Lincoln dealers for kissing Pearl Bailey on the cheek. The host was a powerful guy. He had been on the cover of Time in 1955.
After Sullivan announced an upcoming appearance by Belafonte, CBS canceled him because of his pro-Communist views. Sullivan met with the left-wing activist and got him put back on. As the biggest star on television, he could get away with such defiance.
As Afro.com noted, Diahann Carroll, who appeared on the show nine times, said: "For those of us who were actors, he introduced us to each other. I don't think he understood what he was doing as exceptional, he was simply doing what was in his heart."
Sullivan also took on one of the most racist politicians in our post-Civil War history, Herman Talmadge, the governor of Georgia.
"We intend to maintain segregation one way or another," Talmadge declared. In pushing an advertising boycott, Talmadge said: "I know that I shall not contribute money by purchasing a product from any man who is contributing to the integration and degradation and the mongrelization of the white race."
Sullivan responded in his column – there's a screenshot – that "the statements of Gov Talmadge that Negro performers should be barred from TV shows on which White performers appear is both stupid and vicious."
Talmadge was later elected to the Senate and was embraced by the Washington establishment. It was said that he modified his views on race. What he actually did was try to politically escape the shameful conduct that the Democratic Party could no longer defend. He had company: Strom Thurmond was a staunch segregationist who filibustered the 1957 Civil Rights Act for more than 24 hours; he too later "modified" his views.
In the late 1950s, at a meeting of CBS affiliates, several managers of Southern stations complained that the host was booking too many Black performers. An angry Sullivan said the stations were under no obligation to carry his show. No one canceled.
CBS canceled Sullivan's show in 1971 because his ratings were declining and his audience was skewing older. On that last show, the guest was Gladys Knight and the Pips. He was so angry that he either refused to do a farewell show or was barred by CBS for doing so, depending on the account. It was the longest-running program on television.
Look, Sullivan's career was framed in the best possible light. The producer is Margo Precht Speciale, his granddaughter. So we should take that into account before nominating him for sainthood.
But it's fair to say the truth was hidden in plain sight. Ed Sullivan was a genuine civil rights hero. And that was news to me.
A little aside: The year after the Beatles debut, a friend's parents took us to what is now the Ed Sullivan Theater to see a top-rated rock group, Freddie and the Dreamers, perform their hit "I'm Telling You Now," complete with a weird stiff-legged dance. Hey, I didn't mind sitting through all the variety acts for that.