Norman Lear Eps. That Changed the World: 'The First Store'

[JamesG]

The Jeffersons — Season 6, Ep. 23 — “The First Store”
Original Air Date: April 6, 1980


An episode-long flashback tells the politically charged story of how George (Sherman Hemsley) started his first dry cleaning store. After meeting with a patronizing white banker and enduring a raft of micro (or, honestly, macro) aggressions, George is on the verge of securing a loan to open the store in Harlem — on the evening of April 4, 1968.

As he shows Louise (Isabel Sanford) and Lionel (Mike Evans) the storefront he’s leased, a brick comes through the glass door and a protester informs the family that Martin Luther King, Jr. has been assassinated.

"The Jeffersons" wasn’t usually as overtly political as some of Lear’s other shows, but Hemsley does a masterful job at playing George’s barely contained rage at the system, leading to a very satisfying (and, importantly, funny) second meeting with the banker the next day. – Rick Porter

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv...ld-1235714838/