fortmill said:
In it's heyday, SCETV was arguably the finest statewide public network in the US (those days are sadly long gone), however it's orgins in the 50s was anything but honorable. The original purpose of the network was to avoid integration of the public schools. It was thought that if in-school programing could be provided to all schools, this would be a means of equalizing educational opportunties for all students, and courts would no longer have grounds for ordering desegregation of the schools. What a joke, but the state spent millions, even in the 50s, toward that goal. Most amazing was the construction Of a STATEWIDE cable system (remember, this was in the 50s)connecting all secondary schools with coaxal, providing 4 channels (later as many as 10). Some elementary schools were also connected, but a statewide OTA network was also constructed to provide programing for them. WNTV/29 came on first in the late 50s in Greenville. By the mid 60s, the entire state was covered by at least one transmitter and by that time nighttime programing was also firmly entrenched. The idea, that ETV could prevent integration of schools had already been discarded, and the goal of out-of school programing was to provide cultural programing as well as shows which would help to bind the various cultures together (what a change!). SCETV was one of the most successful in the country---a ratings survey in 1965 showed that 70% of all households in the state tuned in at least once a week.
fortmill, I don't mean to start an argument here, but I think it is very preposterous to assert that South Carolina launched its educational television system for the purpose of averting
Brown v. Board of Education. I do not see any evidence that would countervail against some considerations below.
Let us examine the facts of how Southern states dealt with segregated education back before
Brown v. Board. Typically, the newest textbooks, library books, and most sophisticated equipment wound up in the hands of the larger city systems, in those schools whose children were most affluent (and whose parents were most supportive, it must be noted). Priorities after that group were, in order, less-well-off whites in those same cities, smaller city systems, and schools serving rural whites. Blacks, of course, came in, regardless of residence, at the bottom of the hierarchy, which meant that almost all segregated schools got hand-me-downs of everything from the white schools.
Now, let me invoke something at this point that I mentioned in an earlier post about Tennessee: the initial support for technology in the classroom almost certainly came from elites in the state educational establishment, and wealthy white schools were typically the most supportive and the first to utilize television in the classroom. Meanwhile, smaller and rural school systems, bastions of traditional "3 Rs" curriculum and mainly of value to the local population for the high school football team, probably did not take too kindly to this potential intrusion upon local custom and authority. It is an anthropological fact that rural folkways are exceedingly more defiant toward challenging forces than urban ones, where progress and change are viewed as inevitable, even healthy.
This point becomes important when you begin to understand that the small city and county school boards were not particularly interested in improving education for African-Americans at all, prior to the Civil Rights movement. They would have been likely to oppose, not support, a medium that would further the "separate but equal" mentality, which they knew in their heart of hearts was a fiction, a self-justification to start with. Even with that not under consideration, there is little question that SCETV officials knew very well that few if any black classrooms would be equipped with a television set--black schools were poor, period. You certainly cannot worry about luxuries like TV if you cannot afford classroom necessities like chalk and paper. When SCETV boasted of linking junior high and high schools to a network, I am sure it meant all white schools.
Above all else, this was the time period in which states, such as Virginia, were contemplating closing their public schools entirely rather than comply with Federal orders. I suspect South Carolina considered that remedy to a far greater extent than going to the expense of launching a television network. Closing schools is a hell of a lot cheaper, it hardly needs mentioning.
Therefore, I think we are led to the realization that racial motivations played little or no role in the early development of the ETV system. Its racism lay in the more conventional sense in that it was a system designed for white schools.
NOTE: There is an interesting postscript to all of this in a book by University of Minnesota professor Laurie Ouellette titled
Viewers Like You?: How Public TV Failed the People. She mentions, with a scholarly, jaundiced eye, SCETV's job bulletin board show aimed at African-Americans titled
Jobman Caravan. It's available for reading (limited preview) at Google books.
