New York City municipal broadcasters like Channel L and WNYC-TV provided access to video technology that under-served communities were often denied or excluded from. Operating from 1977 to 1991, Channel L produced a large number of programs that focused on issues that affected the lives of black Americans, with titles like “Black Leadership in NYC,” “Black Folk Art,” “AIDS in the Black Community” and many more.

On February 21st, 1990, Channel L aired a call-in talk show hosted by then State Senator David Paterson, titled “Honoring Black History Month.” Now, 30 years later, the Municipal Archives is digitizing tape from the Channel L collection, including this Black History Month tape. This is part of an ongoing effort to preserve and make available the Archives’ large audio/visual holdings. Program guests included community activist Elombe Brath, Hunter College philosophy professor Frank Kirkland, artist Glenn Bolton AKA Daddy-O and music producer Robert A. Celestin. Together with calls from the New York City public, they discussed the legacy of Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the freeing of Nelson Mandela, the impact of rap music on American culture and Black History Month in general.

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated February 21st, 1965 and April 4th, 1968, respectively. For decades since, the content of their lives and the ideals they died for have shaped the basic way in which we discuss and remember the Civil Rights movement that came to define the 1960s. For these commentators in 1990, only a single generation had come to adulthood since the death of Dr. King. Now, another 30 years later, the conversations recorded in this video are no less relevant.

Callers did not need to look to the past to find inspirational leaders fighting for racial justice, though. On February 11th, 1990, only 10 days before this program aired, Nelson Mandela was freed from his 27-year imprisonment in South Africa as the Apartheid system began to dissolve. Mandela would go on to make a pan-African tour before meeting other leaders around the world, including President George H.W. Bush, Pope John Paul II and the first black mayor of New York City, David N. Dinkins. The time span from Mandela’s release to today is roughly the same as the time span from Malcolm X’s death in 1965 to 1990 when this video was made.

By 1990, rap music had grown from block parties in The Bronx to a rapidly expanding cultural phenomenon, but was still seen by some as inflammatory and controversial. Although it now is one of the most financially successful and appreciated musical genres in the world, many people in 1990 viewed groups and artists like NWA, Public Enemy and Ice-T as emblematic of problems with black culture in America. Yet many others, like Robert A. Celestin, saw rap for what it was- the voice of a new generation of black Americans, unwilling and incapable of tolerating an unjust system any longer.

In addition to the WNYC-TV and Channel L collections, the NYPD surveillance film collection at the Municipal Archives has rarely seen films of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and The Black Panthers available for viewing online now on the NYCMA website. http://nycma.lunaimaging.com/luna/servlet/NYCMA~3~3