Confronted

Item Information

Title:
Confronted
Description:
1 hour program, produced in 1963 by WGBH, originally shot on film. Although most northern whites profess liberality and fair play, when the Negro advances in the direction of his pocketbook, his real estate, and his family life, the northern white is often overcome with unforeseen emotions and deep-seated prejudice. This one hour documentary visits a number of areas in the northern United States where whites have actually been confronted by the Negro who is demanding freedom now. The program opens in New York Citys borough of Queens, where Negroes have been staging daily protests against alleged discrimination by construction trade unions. Focusing on the white construction worker, the program endeavors to learn how he really reacts to the demonstrations, the demands for more Negro members, and the Negro movement in general. Next, the camera takes the viewer to Malverne, Long Island, a suburb of New York City, where Negroes want an end to de facto segregation in the schools. Here white citizens have organized to fight the New York State school commissioners order that the Malverne Board of Education affect a plan to insure that no school has more than 50 percent Negro enrollment. At the homes of white opposition leaders, and at their citizens meetings, the program shows what Malvernes whites are doing to combat order, and how this confrontation between white and Negro seems to breed alienation of races. From Malverne the scene shifts to a bank in St. Louis, where a bank executive gives his reaction to Negro protests against alleged discrimination in hiring. In Chicago, Confronteds host and producer, George Page, visits a fashionable Loop barber shop to have his hair cut, and listens to the barber tell why hed quit the business if any public accommodations law ever required him to cut Negros hair something he refused to do when Negro trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie visited his shop recently. Also in Chicago, cameras follow Howard Scaman, organizer of city-wide resistance to a proposed open occupancy ordinance to outlaw discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. They capture a mass project meeting of four thousand whites at City Hall, conversations between Scaman and residents of an all-white neighborhood that abuts a Negro district, a speech by Scaman to an all-white meeting, and an interview with Percy Wagner, president of Chicagos Real Estate Board, which backs the resistance movement. Finally, the film takes the viewer to the Philadelphia suburb of Folcroft, the scene of ugly rioting this summer when a Negro family moved in. Some of Folcrofts whites frankly admit they ran away from the Negro in Philadelphia and have no intention of welcoming him to their new suburban neighborhood. Opposition, they say, is based on fear of everything from property devaluation to intermarriage. At a meeting of the Folcroft Action Committees block captains, cameras record their open discrimination to keep the people of the community informed and freeze out the Negro family. The block captains completely frank and forthright comments provide a unique film document, as does a visit with the Negro family against whom the whites have organized. The host and producer of Confront is George Page, who earlier that year produced The Southern Liberal for NETs The White South: Two Views. Now director of special projects for public affairs at WGBH-TV, Boston, Mr. Page was previously news editor of WSB-TV the NBC affiliate in Atlanta, Georgia, where he also produced documentaries. One of his WSB-TV documentaries Blockbusting: Atlanta Style recently won for him the annual Radio-Television News Directors Association award for the best edited documentary by a local station. Mr. Page is a native of Georgia and a graduate of Emory University in Atlanta. The photographers for Confronted are Albert and David Maysles, two pioneer film makers from New York City who have received wide recognition for their work. Confronted is a 1963 production for the National Educational Television by WGBH-TV, Boston. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
Production company:
WGBH Educational Foundation
Producer:
Page, George
Creator:
Maysles, Albert
Creator:
Maysles, David
Interviewee:
Wagner, Percy
Host:
Page, George
Speaker:
Scaman, Howard
Date:
December 2, 1963
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive
Collection (local):
American Archive of Public Broadcasting Collection
Series:
Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive
Subjects:
Social Issues
Local Communities
Race and Ethnicity
Public Affairs
Extent:
00:59:18
Link to Item:
https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-7940r9mz9s
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
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