Beaver being friends with a black kid

[Neutronman67]

Would it have been risky back in the 1960's for Beaver to be friends with a African American kid do you think it would have caused controversy ?

[AKA]

There would surely have been a handful of affiliates in the South who would have refused to air the episode(s).

[Neutronman67]

Even if the black kid appeared for just an episode i dont think Leave It To Beaver would be in cancellation.

[MickeyMac]

Considering the times, they wouldnt have even considered having Beaver having a black friend. Maybe if the show had been made a decade later, after the victories of the civil rights movement.

[Hughsgirl]

I think it would have raised a few eyebrows but I think the show was strong enough to withstand that. I agree that it may not have been played in the South.

[loaferman]

Originally Posted by Brad

There would surely have been a handful of affiliates in the South who would have refused to air the episode(s).

The notion that the South would be upset while the oh so tolerant North would not is ridiculous. Ever heard about busing in Boston? That was decades after the South had desegregated. Revisionist history. I went to a desegregated school in the South in the 1960's.

[AKA]

Originally Posted by loaferman

The notion that the South would be upset while the oh so tolerant North would not is ridiculous. Ever heard about busing in Boston? That was decades after the South had desegregated. Revisionist history. I went to a desegregated school in the South in the 1960's.

The Civil War ended 148 years ago, so there's no need turn this into a North vs. South pissing match; you and I are citizens of the same country last time I checked.

I didn't base my statement on any stereotypes, but on actual precedent. There are documented cases of television stations in the South refusing to air network shows based on racial content. Look up The Nat King Cole Show, for example. It was canceled because Southern NBC affiliates wouldn't air it, and as a result, it couldn't get the sponsors it needed to survive.

Then there's WLBT in Jackson, Mississippi (owned at the time by White Citizens' Council ally Lamar Life Insurance), which cut out portions of NBC News broadcasts dealing with the ongoing Civil Rights struggle by pretending to have "technical difficulties." Some Southern stations deaffiliated with their networks because they disagreed with their pro-equality stances.

I never implied that the North was/is without its racism, but you can't deny that racial intolerance was more prevalent (or, at the very least, more shamelessly out in the open) in the South. That you attended a desegregated school in the South in the 1960s is wonderful, but it was an exception and not the rule in Jim Crow-era South.

[Neutronman67]

Leave it to beaver producers could have gone a diff'rent root where a black student is new in school and beaver feels sorry for the student and wants to be friends with him it could have made for a good episode