The Whitest Kids in Town

Book Review: Matthew Delmont, The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock and Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia.

There was one important change that [producer] Tony [Mammarella] and I made in 1957. Up until that time, the dancers on Bandstand had one thing in common—they were all white. . . . So in 1957, we were charting new territory. I don't think of myself as a hero or a civil rights activist for integrating the show; it was simply the right thing to do.

                              Dick Clark, Dick Clark's American Bandstand (1997)

Dick Clark's daily television show, American Bandstand, was a major influence on American popular music from 1957 to 1963. Clark presided over rock and roll at a time when the pendulum swung back toward conformity. The music establishment regained control over the business, white performers reestablished dominance on the pop charts, and fans suffered through what most critics regard as a dark period lacking in creativity.

From 1952 to 1957, Bandstand, hosted by Bob Horn, was a local Philadelphia after school program featuring teenagers dancing in the studio to recorded music, with guest musicians lip-syncing their hits. There was an explicit whites-only policy regarding the kids in the studio. When Dick Clark took over as host in 1957, the program obtained a spot on the nationwide ABC network. In 1964, Clark moved the program to Los Angeles. It is agreed that after 1964, the high school dancers were completely integrated. At issue is the period between 1957 and 1963 in Philadelphia.

When Delmont began his research, he accepted Clark's account, and set out to discover how integration had occurred so smoothly in the racially-contested environment of Philadelphia. Instead, he found that Clark's claim is false. The program remained segregated, for all practical purposes, from 1957 to 1963. He cites several types of evidence.

Delmont interviewed both white and black people who participated in American Bandstand as teenagers. All agreed that there was an unacknowledged whites-only policy and black dancers were few and far between. African-Americans reported that when they tried to gain admission, they were always excluded for some reason: they lacked a membership card, they didn't meet the dress code, the studio was full, etc. One (white) interviewee reported that blacks who tried to get in were “beat up in the parking lot.”

Several times, African-American teenagers tried to integrate the show. In October 1957, a small group of them, accompanied by a reporter from the Philadelphia Tribune (a black newspaper), tested the policy. They were admitted, but the following day it was business as usual. Several articles about Bandstand's segregation policy appeared in the nation's black press, but they lacked leverage to influence the policy.

Of course, whether African-American teenagers appeared on the program is an empirical question. However, Dick Clark Productions, Inc., controls all the existing footage of American Bandstand. Delmont was able to examine 130 video clips from their web archives. He also found several hundred still photos published by Clark and other sources. Among thousands of teens, he only found two black girls sitting in the bleachers in two still photos.

Why did American Bandstand follow a whites-only policy? Delmont attributes it primarily to the commercial aspirations of the local station, WFIL, the network, and the sponsors, who hoped to appeal to a white suburban audience. Clark may have learned an important lesson from observing the fate of New York disc jockey Alan Freed, who was committed to integration. In the Summer of 1957, Freed had a prime time show, The Big Beat, on ABC, the network Clark would join that Fall. During the closing credits of the program, one of his guests, black singer Frankie Lymon, in a moment of spontaneity, danced briefly with a white girl. There was an national uproar. Freed was told that if the show was to continue, he could only have white guests. When he refused the show was cancelled.

Delmont's website contains this link to an interview of the author by Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now in 2012.

Delmont embeds the Bandstand story in a larger narrative about racial conflict in Philadelphia. Housing was rigidly segregated, and white residents formed associations to keep their neighborhoods “safe” from integration. When African-Americans moved into a previously white area, real estate speculators profited from “block busting.” They bought homes cheaply from fleeing whites and sold them at much higher prices to black families, whose real estate options were limited. De facto segregation in the public schools was maintained by carefully drawing district lines to conform to neighborhood racial patterns and by careful choice of the locations of new schools. All of this took place after the school board passed a resolution claiming that the Philadelphia public schools were integrated.

Why does all of this matter? From 1957 to 1963, American Bandstand was an important symbol of a national youth culture built around rock music—a culture that it implicitly defined as all-white. This is ironic given that the music itself was of a genre originated by African-Americans. Although Clark featured some black musicians as guests, he used his show to restore white artists, such as Philadelphia-based “teen idols” Frankie Avalon and Fabian, to a position of prominence on the pop charts. By coincidence, Clark happened to be part owner of some of the record labels and publishing houses whose music he featured.

Delmont takes no position on whether Dick Clark's claims about integration were deliberate lies or a classic example of self-serving memory failure. But his false statements raise a larger issue: How will the civil rights struggle of the '50s and '60s be remembered? Individuals and groups who were once a big part of the problem, such as white Christian churches, now claim to have been part of the solution. As late as 1966, twice as many Americans had an unfavorable view of Martin Luther King as had a favorable one. Those of us who remember the real history of these years are going to have to document the validity of our memories—memories that are increasingly challenged by propaganda from corporations and individuals who would like to rewrite recent history.

Thanks to Gayle Morrow for calling this book to my attention.