It's Been Beautiful: Soul! and Black Power Television
Author Talk and Signing with Gayle Wald
Soul! was where Stevie Wonder and Earth, Wind & Fire got funky, where Toni Morrison read from her debut novel, where James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni discussed gender and power, and where Amiri Baraka and Stokely Carmichael enjoyed a sympathetic forum for their radical politics. Broadcast on public television between 1968 and 1973, Soul!, helmed by pioneering producer and frequent host Ellis Haizlip, connected an array of black performers and public figures with a black viewing audience. In It's Been Beautiful, Gayle Wald tells the story of Soul!, casting this influential but overlooked program as a bold and innovative use of television to represent and critically explore black identity, culture, and feeling during a transitional period in the black freedom struggle.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gayle Wald is Professor of English and American Studies at George Washington University. She is the author of Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Crossing the Line: Racial Passing in U.S. Twentieth-Century Literature and Culture.