![]() The final radio broadcast of “Amos ‘n’ Andy” aired on November 25, 1960. These protests led to the TV show’s cancellation in 1953. This did not stop African American advocacy groups and eventually the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP) from criticizing both the radio and TV versions of “Amos ‘n’ Andy” for promoting racial stereotypes. With Alvin Childress and Spencer Williams taking over for Gosden and Carrell, the show was the first TV series to feature an all-Black cast and the only one of its kind for the next 20 years. ![]() Over the next 22 years, the show would become the highest-rated comedy in radio history, attracting more than 40 million listeners.īy 1951, when “Amos ‘n’ Andy” came to television, changing attitudes about race and concerns about racism had virtually wiped out the practice of blackface. As their new contract gave Gosden and Carrell the right to syndicate the program, the popularity of “Amos ‘n’ Andy” soon exploded. When they discovered WGN owned the rights to their characters’ names, they simply changed them. In 1928, Gosden and Carrell took their act to a rival station, the Chicago Daily News’ WMAQ. When “Sam ‘n’ Henry” debuted in January 1926, it became an immediate hit. Gosden and Carrell, both vaudeville performers, were doing a Chicago comedy act in blackface when an employee at the Chicago Tribune suggested they create a radio show. By that time, white actors performing in dark stage makeup-or “ blackface”-had been a significant tradition in American theater for over 100 years. Though the creators and the stars of the new radio program, Freeman Gosden and Charles Carrell, were both white, the characters they played were two Black men from the Deep South who moved to Chicago to seek their fortunes. ![]() Two years later, after changing its name to “Amos ‘n’ Andy,” the show became one of the most popular radio programs in American history. On January 12, 1926, the two-man comedy series “Sam ‘n’ Henry” debuts on Chicago’s WGN radio station. ![]()
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