A place in timetwo paths to a television broadcast

kevin Hamilton

2012

what haened hereby birth

youve asked around and learned from people

by train, plane, or bus?

but you can also learnfrom records and bks

heres one story I foundthat way...

before you came along?

what haened here

and created for residents of Urbana and Champaign.

the authors Research depended heavily on the generous resources and sta at The champaign county his- torical archives at the urbana fr library, as we as the university of iinois archives. the kind folks at the anita purves nature center helped with ques-tions about the big grove.

i also learned a great deal from joy a wiiamson's bk black power on campus: the university of iinois 1965-75, as we as monika broecker's biography of heinz von foerster, part of the world.

great thanks also go to jamie hutchinson for intro-ducing me to von foerster's story, and to carol augspurger for introducing me to trelease wds.

jack brighton shared an image from wI-TV's history, and I also boowed an image from doug quick's great online history of television in central iinois.

this project was paid for in part by a city of urbana arts grant.

this work is licensed under a creative coons aribution-sharealike 3.0 unported license.

kevin hamiltoncomplexfields -at- gmail -dot- com

December 2012

this bk is a product of Urbana, Iinois

long ago this place was a sea then a marsh and then ice

then a marsh again and then more icethen a forest

this went on for a while

eventuay, people came and went

their stories takemany forms

then some came from europe and stayed. they built roads and then railroads

slave ships churned west from africa

meanwhile...

jews in viea, austria gained status as citizens

in co shops & salonsnew art and ideas emerged

early electrical experimentsled to baeries & dynamos

while coer veinsremained dp in the earth

meanwhile...

the railroad brought a university

the university builta student center

which hosted aunique event in 1968

before moving to iinoisfor a job as profeor

frd slaves moved to places like Champaign, ILlinois

where YOUNG john l johnson later saw in-equality on his walks

and then helped organize eorts

to are it

her grandson heinz wouldlisten from beneath a piano

and later watched the lastgerman tanks leave austria

marie lang, maied to a jew,led a salon of feminists & artists

the army built an airbase

radio tk sound to the airwaves

and images werentfar behind

champaign saw itsfirst TV station

sn the university started its own

trelease wdsurbana, iinois

In Fa of 1967, coege camPuses were geing Heated.

strife and bldshed over war and racial injustices were growing.

a television program caed public broadcasting labdecided to host a live nationaldiscuion about these events.

they did so from the iini unionin urbana, where students had recently blocked a defense con-tractor caed dow from hiringon campus.

What about A the psychological napalm whites drop on blacks every day

around here?

did your sit-in against dow violate

other students right to fr spch ?

Yes BUT I s their rights as le

important than those of the vietnamese

to Live.

we Thatsa RECIPE for

DISASTER.

schls SAY THEY want to Kp neutral. Whats Neutral about

dow ? Is anyone goa answer my

question?

No Dean Mie. CAMPUSES Make distinctions betwn Relative rights every

single day !

*john l johnson

lk this is GD, what is haening here. you

cant talk about vietnam without talking about how our society

is founded on racism. its a coected.

were trying to help by helping white students to s the

problems.

but you havent told them to stop being racists!

were Talking aboutStudent Power Here,

not BLack Power.

did StokeLY Te you to sit-in

on Dow?

Yes, but after yougraduate, you just go

get white mile clajobs and forget

about us.

are white studentsready to do violence

on behalf of theblack man?

sure, lk at Oakland!

im not talkingabout oakland, Im

talking about Northchampaign!

stokeLy CARmichael said THAT whites should go back to their own

gheos. So We did.

lk, Our WorkSuorts Yours!

how can you invitea bunch of black studentshere tonight and not talk about racial injustice?

can we please getback on topic? I didntcome here to talk aboutproblems in the North end of champaign.

excuse me, you s I Amcolorblind, and nd tocheck if I understand the

distinctions here.

mr. johnson, is the main iue that you might

be on the picket line with some-one who doesnt care

if you are black?

the problem is thati might be on the picketline with someone whodoesnt care that Im

a Human being!

were TRYING to help kids learn to stop

this system.

ok then - how canwe help you with that?

What do you nd?

we racists like you dont know

nothing about whites or blacks!

the system kps us a down! it tes

me that i have to wear shoes a the time!

we one thingwe dont nd is a bunch

of militant blacks comingin and complaining about

their problems!

*heinz von foerster

what is the Universitys role

in a this?

we should just admit that we are a guilty here - guilty of

not creating a just society.

how am Iguilty?

people are afraidto say it, but we have

to disrupt these institutions!

but is there any alternative

to tearing themdown?

no.

i Havea Question.

i have a question for dean mie.

hey this guy heresbn trying to get in

for awhile.

youve bntalking for half the progrAm!

what aboutmy question?

[ shule , scule ]

ok Lets talk about the problems. Dean Mie,

why isnt there A single black janitor on

this campus?

your role is to help students coect the

clarm to real social problems, and to fl

the iues.

the students are re-sponsible for themselves.mostly they just want us

to aow girls in theirdorm rms.

we nd to getback to the core of

this university - expertprofeors imparting

knowledge to students.

mr. Roman, would you like to are mies

point?

i getto him next.

Mr. Johnson, would you like to explain why youre

leaving?

we Cant makeany sense out of

this thing here.

dont you getit dean Mie? Your way isnt

working!

lk, we can deal with this. we just nd to stop

the war.

you goa understand. those kids that walked out lk at our situation

and its bad.

speaking for sororities, this whole conversatioN maers

about this much.

lk I lived throughnazi germany. I can te

you that things hereare not that bad.

but they couldbecome so. So I

would like to makea suestion...

Public broadcasting Lab (PBL)only lasted one season. its makers wenton to start one of televisions mostinfluential news programs - the cbs wkly caed 60 minutes.

it is vital that you each develop your own powers

of COgnition... so that you can truly s the

problems...

and truly s who wi be your man in helping

solve them.

and then, at some point, You came in...

john L JOhnson would go on to a long carr of sue-ful service and advocacy for racial equality.

heinz Von Foerster wouldlater teach a series of influ-ential claes on science, art, and activism.

[ alause , fade out ]

other paths

Trelease wds are one the last remnants of the original grove of trs that led people to sele in urbana for short or long term in the years since the last ice age.

mike roman was a leader in thefr spch movement as a student atthe University of California, berkeley. pbl invited him to urbana as a guest participant for the broadcast.

the kaskaskia, peoria, cahokia, and other indigenous peoples caedurbana home for many centuries beforewhite selers moved them west to reservations, or kied them.

ji hultin was another vocal guest of pbl that night, and a national leader in early student movements forwomens rights and civil rights. at thetime she was a student at ucla.

howard spencer was a student and activist at tougal Coege in miiii.pbl invited him to the conversation as aleader in anti-war and civil rights demon-strations acro the american south.

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