Black History Untold Stories

Little known but inspirational stories from Black history

Category: African Americans

The Nat King Cole Show: First Black-Hosted TV Variety Show

February 15, 2018 / / 2 Comments
Nat King Cole in 1947
Source: General Artists Corporation via Wikimedia

The Nat King Cole TV Show

Old King Cole was a merry old soul, and a merry old soul was he. But in December of 1957, his namesake, Nat King Cole, was anything but merry.

Nat was a superstar singer whose records were selling in the millions all around the world. That stardom had landed him his own television variety program, which had been broadcast nationwide for the past 13 months on the NBC network. Now the show had been cancelled, leaving Nat disappointed, sad, and somewhat angry.

Top Quality TV That Could Never Find a Sponsor

The program had seemed to have all the ingredients necessary for success. It had top notch production values, booked the very best musical and variety talent in the land as guests, and in Nat had a host who was one of the most popular and personable singers in the world. But the one thing it did not have, and was never able to get, was a national sponsor.

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Stand For The National Anthem or Else!

January 26, 2018 / / 0 Comments

The national anthem controversy currently roiling our body politic has a longer history than we may be aware of. I just ran across a story that I think provides some comically prescient insight regarding what’s really behind some (not all) of the outrage that’s been expressed in our society at the refusal of some African American football players to stand for the national anthem at NFL games.

The interesting thing about this story is that it was written almost 75 years ago during WW2. It appears in the November, 1943 issue of The Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP. The author was Chester B. Himes (1909-1984), an African American who would become a celebrated writer of detective fiction. Four of his novels, including If He Hollers Let Him Go and Cotton Comes to Harlem, were made into feature films. In 1958 he was awarded the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, France’s most prestigious award for crime and detective fiction.

Chester B. Himes

Chester B. Himes

The story Himes wrote for The Crisis in 1943 was called, “All He Needs Is Feet,” and with obvious irony recounted the story of an unlucky Black man named Ward.

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The Sad, Hilarious, Lunacy of Race Prejudice

December 23, 2015 / / 2 Comments


I just saw a headline in a WW2-era Southern newspaper that caught my attention. It was carried in the November 16, 1945 edition of the San Antonio Register, and said:

Mob Threatens White Officer for Blocking J. Crow
 Major Insists All GIs Be Fed Together in Mississippi Cafe

To me, the account that followed illustrates the utter irrationality of racial prejudice and segregation as practiced for so long in the states of the former Confederacy. It also illustrates the courage and determination of some fair-minded whites who refused to participate in the evil of racial discrimination.
The story concerns the efforts of Maj. Edward Gierring to transport a group of 25 soldiers, including two African Americans, from California to Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. When the train carrying the soldiers arrived at Jackson, Mississippi, Maj. Gierring took his troop to the Jefferson grill for a quick meal. He had the group seated in various booths in the establishment. The major himself, who was white, sat in a booth with the two black members of his group.
Serve black soldiers? Horrors!

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Roger C. Terry: A Tuskegee Airman Sacrifices His Career For Justice

July 30, 2015 / / 1 Comment

Roger C. Terry (1921-2009) was a U. S. Army Air Forces officer in World War II. In his short military career, Terry compiled a record most people would classify as miserable: he was court-martialed for shoving a superior officer, convicted, fined, reduced in rank, and kicked out of the service with a dishonorable discharge. But Roger Terry was proud of what he accomplished in his short military career for the rest of his life.

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