Dick Clark has passed away, and I just learned about a pretty brave stand he took for integration in the Jim Crow-era South. Here’s the account, as written in 1997 in the New Pittsburgh Courier:
Clark also became friends, he says, with a lot of the African-Americans who appeared on “American Bandstand” and developed a lasting bond with legendary soul singer Sam Cooke (who would later be shot to death in his early 30s).
Clark says it was Cooke who enlightened him to America’s racism “things that as a white man I had never experienced.
“You knew that people of color faced prejudice every day of their lives,” he wrote, “but Sam was the first person to tell me about it in personal terms.”
During one instance in 1958, Clark says he witnessed that prejudice firsthand when he emceed a live show in Atlanta in which Cooke appeared. Cooke was the only Black performer on the concert bill and the National Guard had to be called in amid threats from the Ku Klux Klan.
“The National Guard was there,” Clark said, “but some people had already warned us that many of them were Klan members themselves.”
Clark says it was Cooke who enlightened him to America’s racism “things that as a white man I had never experienced.
“You knew that people of color faced prejudice every day of their lives,” he wrote, “but Sam was the first person to tell me about it in personal terms.”
During one instance in 1958, Clark says he witnessed that prejudice firsthand when he emceed a live show in Atlanta in which Cooke appeared. Cooke was the only Black performer on the concert bill and the National Guard had to be called in amid threats from the Ku Klux Klan.
“The National Guard was there,” Clark said, “but some people had already warned us that many of them were Klan members themselves.”
