The (Brief) Return of Amos 'n Andy

Amos 'n Andy, the television show, was hauled off the air in the sixties, after years of protest by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP and its leader Benjamin Hooks and other African-American organizations and many African-Americans detested the stereotypical caricatures portrayed in the show. The show presented the antics of Amos Jones, a middle-of-the-roader who accepted the racial status quo, Andrew Hogg “Andy” Brown, a dim-witted, failed entrepreneur, George “Kingfish” Stevens, a scheming, overly clever smooth talker, Algonquin J. Calhoun, a crooked, third-rate attorney, Lightin’, a slow talking, slow stepping janitor, Sapphire, a loud back-talking wife, and Mama, a bossy, opinionated mother-in-law, as a microcosm of the entire American black urban community.

The show was viewed as a representation of all of black America. That there were no admirable characters in the show told viewers that there were no admirable people in black America – just clowns and buffoons. The show had a talented cast and was well written and produced, but was wrong for the times, perhaps wrong for any time. Some people contend that if there had been competing black television shows at the time which portrayed African-Americans in a more positive light, that counterbalance would have created more tolerance for the negative stereotyping that took place in Amos n’ Andy. A positive, counterbalancing view and the high quality of the acting would have saved Amos 'n Andy – maybe.

Many of the show’s themes involved Andy and the Kingfish. Sometimes, Andy had something the Kingfish wanted, but most often, the Kingfish was trying to bamboozle Andy in some business deal or another. Whether it was selling Andy a lot with a movie-prop house façade as a full-scale home, selling him land with the false claim that it had valuable oil deposits on it, or selling Andy a restaurant that would soon lose its customers because of the rerouting of a busy highway. The Kingfish could always smooth-talk the dim-witted Andy into the web of his many schemes. And, whenever Andy resisted, the Kingfish often enlisted the help of their fellow lodge member, the under-esteemed Algonquin J. Calhoun, Esquire. Together, the two frequently carried out their plans to dupe Andy, but karma was always on Andy’s side, and their schemes always backfired on them. The Kingfish’s charm was that he was always as glib explaining his way out of the situation as he was conning Andy into it. The Kingfish was a master at subterfuge and trickery and Calhoun often helped by paving the way.
There were many episodes of the show in which, when the Kingfish’s schemes were uncovered, the Kingfish would use whatever evidence Andy or Sapphire (his most frequent targets), had against him to prove his good intentions. The Kingfish would recite the same evidence that pointed to his guilt, twist it a little, to prove that he had committed no wrong, legal or otherwise, and that he meant no harm.

Article Author: Horace Mungin

1968 was the year that I published my first boardside volume of poetry in a book entitled "Dope Huslter's Jazz." 1968 was the year that the world came into view and inaction was no longer possible for me. …

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