Someone is selling a 16mm episode of black journal (Net series, 1974) on ebay, and I thought this synopsis was worth keeping for posterity

By RM
tuesday, june 10, 2025 at 1:55:00 a.m. edt

Someone is selling a 16mm episode of black journal (Net series, 1974) on ebay, and I thought this synopsis was worth keeping for posterity:

“black poetess Nikki Giovanni interviews singer Lena Horne in this special black journal program focusing on the Black woman. Miss Horne speaks candidly about her divorce and remarriage to a White man, orchestral conductor Lennie Hayton.

“She admits that she ‘failed’ her first husband: ‘I had married first a Black man and I wasn’t a big enough woman to help him,’ she says. Asked about her views on the recent arrest of Black revolutionary Angela Davis, Miss Horne asserts: ‘what I’m so afraid of is this actually is a calculated move in many instances because – the kind of strength that these young people have, which may not always be comparable to the kind our ancestors had, is so positive and so fearless that it frightens people.’”

I know you are already aware Lena Horne was scum. The combination of stupidity plus arrogance in her statement is mind-boggling. Here’s the rest of the description:

“In another segment, a panel of six prominent Black women discuss the role of the Black woman in today’s society. Participating in the panel are Verta Mae Grosvenor, author of Vibrations Cooking; Jean Fairfax, NAACP Legal Defense lawyer; Martha Davis of the Harlem Drug Fighters Union; Marion-Etoile Watson, producer for Metromedia Television [Channel 5, New York City]; Bibi Amina Baraka [Mrs. LeRoi Jones]; and Joan Harris, hostess of NBS’s [NBC’s?] Positively Black. Also on the program Mrs. Grosvenor’s eight-year-old daughter, Kali, reads from her recently published book, Poems by Kali; The Church of the Shrine of the Black Madonna holds a woman’s day ceremony to honor ‘the generations of struggle that the Black woman has made in order for Black people to survive’; during the ceremony in the church, author Sonia Sanchez reads her poem “Queens of the Universe.” Black Journal #28 is a production of NET Division, Educational Broadcasting Corporation. (Description adapted from NET Microfiche)”

Interesting that someone names her daughter Kali, after the Hindu Death Goddess. I wonder what became of the girl?

LeRoi Jones, before morphing into Amiri Baraka, wrote a play called Dutchman, about a White woman teasing and tormenting a black man in a subway car at night; it was made into a short movie which I actually liked, with yet another Oscar-worthy performance by the great Shirley Knight. Jones was a radical (racist) lunatic, but in this case I thought the anger in the play transcended racial animosity-and Al Freeman Jr. is also outstanding, as the victim. Probably available online.

-RM


“I wonder what became of the girl?” N.S.: Nothing.

“Kali Grosvenor is a cultural heritage legacy bearer and researcher. She is the daughter of Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor.”

Imagine identifying yourself as the non-entity daughter of a non-entity. I identify as a Son of Nana, Son of George, Son of Abraham, and Son of Socrates.

By the way, no-talent “poet” Nikki Giovanni (1943-2024), who was a triple affirmative action (for being “black,” female, and lesbian) recipient of White tax dollars, was paid millions of dollars as an empty professor, simply for being a black supremacist.