111123 Way Black History Fact - The African American DNA in Sesame Street

this is exciting. Okay. So. Making its debut in nineteen sixty nine, the beloved children's television show was shaped by the African American communities in Harlem and beyond. Sesame Street arose from the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration's Great Society Agenda, a series of federal programs that carried the ambitious goal

of eliminated poverty and racial injustice. As part of these aspirations, Johnson, who had taught poor Mexican American children while a student in college, created head Start in nineteen sixty five, seeking to disrupt the multi generational cycle of poverty through early

education programs for disadvantaged preschool children. Joan Gaines Cooney, the creator of Sesame Street, said in a nineteen ninety eight interview that a documentary she produced on the Harlem pre school program that would become Headstart led her to quote become absolutely involved intellectually and spiritually with the civil rights movement and with the educational deficit deficit that poverty created.

Soon thereafter, she teamed up with her friend Lloyd Morrissett, a psychologist and Carnegie Corporation executive, who was looking to back a preschool education model that could reach a great number of inter city children. Moriset secured it additional private sector and federal government support, and the Children's Television Workshop, the entity that would produce Sesame Street, along with other

beloved educational programming, was born. While the cast of Sesame Street today is diverse in almost every respect, even by nineteen seventy one, Sesame Street took steps to hire more Hispanic performers and talent, and later would cast actors with physical disabilities. The on air talent for the pilot episode was overwhelmingly black, included principal host Gordon and Susan and included the principal host Gordon and Susan Sorry. Most of the African American cast and crew came up through the

interconnected Black entertainment world of New York. In the late nineteen sixties. Long had been the co host of Soul, an unapologetic black power showcase of politics and culture on New York Public Television, and heard about Sesame Street from Rosen, the set designer who was also on the crew for Soul. Rosenknu Long was a teacher and told her, according to the Street Gang, the show is going to be about

teaching preschoolers, you need to know about it. In light of the show's racially conscious casting, one cannot be faulted for wondering whether any of Jim Henson's muppet creations, more

specifically the humani Ish and Ernie, have racial identities. No fewer than three interracial pairs appear in the first six minutes of the pilot, just before two muppets appear, and as tempting as one might be to believe leave Sesame Street is presenting children with another interracial pair, Hintson once remarked the only kids who can identify along racial lines

with the muppets have to either be green or orange. Yet, in its second year, Sesame Street did introduce a muppet named Roosevelt Franklin, who the producers openly acknowledged as black, created and voiced by Matt Robinson, the actor who played Gordon Roosevelt speaks Black English. That's some quotes which Loretta Long outlined in her dissertation as a way to make him much more believable to the And these are the

words I want to say target audience. Wow. Yeah, and so now a lot of what I know about Sesame Street makes more sense. But also to have it be framed in that light certainly does feel a little bit special and intentional. Their interesting thing is filling this whole time, my whole life, like Sesame Street was for us, even before I knew that. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say to me. So I love that