The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock 'n' Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia

and#147;By challenging Dick Clarkand#8217;s claim that he helped integrate American popular music and culture, Matthew Delmont puts the lie to Clarkand#8217;s air-brushed history of American Bandstandand#8217;s role in racial desegregation. The Nicest Kids in Town shows how the nexus of sound, place, race, and space operated together to create and reinforce a myth of national memory and belonging. Just as importantly, this compelling cultural history demonstrates the importance of the youth market as a theater of struggle where brave young men and womenand#151;outraged by the discrimination and racism they faced for the simple act of enjoying musicand#151;refused to have their bodies, tastes, or desires policed. Delmont shows how the music moved them, and how in turn they moved the music onto television screens across America.and#8221;and#151;Herman Gray, author of Cultural Moves.

and#147;The Nicest Kids in Town speaks simultaneously to several significant current lines of inquiry among historians of the United States after World War II. Delmont takes on issues that we thought we already knew completelyand#151;the social and cultural history of the 1950s and and#145;60s, the Civil Rights movement, the birth of televisionand#151;but he brings original material to his story and connects these issues in new ways. Delmontand#8217;s work proves him to be a talented, careful, and thorough scholar, and in a large body of work on these topics, his book stands alone.and#8221;and#151;Jay Mechling, author of On My Honor: Boy Scouts and the Making of American Youth.

and#8220;Reveals a hidden history of racial segregation on the United States' first television program centered on the teenage population. . . . Provocative.and#8221;

and#8220;Well-researched, tightly-written. . . . Impressively bright, clear, and comprehensive.and#8221;

and#8220;Excellent. . . . Offers a valuable understanding of the . . . melding of African Americans into the national youth culture.and#8221;

and#8220;The study illustrates how . . . nostalgic representations of the past . . . can work as impediments to progress in the present.and#8221;

and#8220;The Nicest Kids in Town counters the (false) mythology of American Bandstand with valuable descriptions of and#8216;forgottenand#8217; cultural productions.and#8221;

American Bandstand, one of the most popular television shows ever, broadcast from Philadelphia in the late fifties, a time when that city had become a battleground for civil rights. Counter to host Dick Clarkand#8217;s claims that he integrated American Bandstand, this book reveals how the first national television program directed at teens discriminated against black youth during its early years and how black teens and civil rights advocates protested this discrimination. Matthew F. Delmont brings together major themes in American historyand#151;civil rights, rock and roll, television, and the emergence of a youth cultureand#151;as he tells how white families around American Bandstandand#8217;s studio mobilized to maintain all-white neighborhoods and how local school officials reinforced segregation long after Brown vs. Board of Education. The Nicest Kids in Town powerfully illustrates how national issues and history have their roots in local situations, and how nostalgic representations of the past, like the musical film Hairspray, based on the American Bandstand era, can work as impediments to progress in the present.

Matthew F. Delmont is Assistant Professor of American Studies at Scripps College.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Making Philadelphia Safe for and#147;WFIL-adelphiaand#8221;

Television, Housing, and Defensive Localism in Bandstandand#8217;s Backyard

2. They Shall Be Heard

Local Television as a Civil Rights Battleground

3. The de Facto Dilemma

Fighting Segregation in Philadelphia Public Schools

4. From Little Rock to Philadelphia

Making de Facto School Segregation a Media Issue

5. The Rise of Rock and Roll in Philadelphia

Georgie Woods, Mitch Thomas, and Dick Clark

6. and#147;Theyand#8217;ll Be Rockinand#8217; on Bandstand, in Philadelphia, P.A.and#8221;

Imagining National Youth Culture on American Bandstand

7. Remembering American Bandstand, Forgetting Segregation

8. Still Boppinand#8217; on Bandstand

American Dreams, Hairspray, and American Bandstand in the 2000s

Conclusion

Everybody Knows about American Bandstand

Notes

Index