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Washington Post

A group of Black Panthers helped launch ‘The Jeffersons' 50 years ago

Tired of seeing stereotypical portrayals of poor Black characters in TV shows like the 1970s sitcom 'Good Times,' several Black Panthers paid a visit to the show's creator, legendary TV writer and producer Norman Lear. 'Every time you see a Black man on the tube, he is dirt poor, wears s--t clothes, can't afford nothing. That's bulls---,' one of them told him, Lear recalled in his autobiography. In response, Lear created 'The Jeffersons,' which debuted a half-century ago this year. It presented the image of an upwardly mobile Black businessman, George Jefferson. Lear wrote that the Black Panthers had specific complaints about 'Good Times,' which portrayed a low-income, struggling Black family living in a Chicago public housing apartment. It starred comedian Jimmie Walker as J.J., whose exaggerated gestures and loud catchphrase 'Dy-no-mite!' rankled some of the other cast members, such as Esther Rolle, who played matriarch Florida Evans. 'I resent the imagery that says to Black kids that you can make it by standing on the corner saying 'Dy-no-mite!'' she told Ebony magazine in 1975. The actor who played the father on 'Good Times,' John Amos, also had some complaints, criticizing how the show portrayed African American families. For his efforts, his character was killed off the show. 'I left because I was told that my services were no longer needed because I had become a 'disruptive element,' ' Amos said years later. As Lear recounted the confrontation with the Black activists: One day three members of the Black Panthers, a militant civil rights group of the sixties and seventies, stormed into my offices at CBS saying they'd 'come to see the garbage man' — me. 'Good Times' was garbage, they said, and on they ranted: 'Show's nothing but a white man's version of a black family … Character of J.J. is a f***ing put down …' Hours later, Lear recalled, he told his associate Al Burton about their complaints, and they quickly got on the same page — a new spin-off show called 'The Jeffersons.' It was a natural progression for Lear, one of Hollywood's most outspoken liberals. George Jefferson, his wife Louise, and their son, Lionel, had already been characters on Lear's groundbreaking 1970s hit show 'All in the Family,' playing the Black neighbors of bigoted Archie Bunker in the working-class borough of Queens in New York. In George Jefferson, Archie had finally found his match, a fellow bigot who delighted in calling White people 'honky.' The opening credits of 'The Jeffersons' show George and Louise following a moving truck across the river to Manhattan to their posh new apartment, and ends with George famously strutting into his new high-rise building. The memorable gospel-style song 'Movin' on Up' provides the soundtrack: We're movin' on up To the East Side To a deluxe apartment in the sky … We finally got a piece of the pie 'The Jeffersons' starred Sherman Hemsley as George, the owner of a successful chain of dry-cleaning stores, and Isabel Sanford as Louise, whom George calls Weezy. Hemsley was told to play George 'pompous and feisty,' which he did, while adding a frenetic, fast-talking style. Adrien Sebro, a media studies professor at Chapman University in Orange, California, told The Post that shows like 'Good Times' had shown Black characters living working-class lives. 'With 'The Jeffersons,' they kind of flipped that to make it clear that we can see blackness in a different light that isn't just about the particular struggles to make it financially every episode,' he said. Sebro, author of the book 'Scratchin' and Survivin': Hustle Economics and the Black Sitcoms of Tandem Productions,' said that the show's portrayal of a successful Black businessman played a role in shaping Americans' views in the 1970s, noting that there were only three TV networks at the time. And he argued that 'The Jeffersons' — and specifically George Jefferson — helped lead to 1990s shows like 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' that also featured financially successful Black characters. 'Seeing this powerful Black man who take no mess, talks back to White people, has his own business,' helped inspire TV writers and creators of the late 1980s and 1990s shows, Sebro said. 'I think it created this allure and energy around Black culture that someone could be the George Jefferson of their neighborhood where you work at a laundromat or dry cleaners and you can maybe own one someday. It blended into this bootstraps ideology that's pervasive in American culture. He was the image of someone who made it through hard work.' In the documentary, 'Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise,' Harvard professor and historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. said that in the 1970s, the increasing diversity of Black life was seen everywhere, especially on TV. Gates called George 'a dynamo Black businessman transported into the bastions of White privilege … a refreshing departure from traditional Black stereotypes. And part of a new, much wider range of Black characters on TV whose stories reflected our rapidly changing reality.' The new show took on racial stereotypes right from the start. In the first episode, Louise invites a maid who works in the building into her new apartment, but the maid mistakes Louise and George for a butler and maid. When they explain that they own the place, she laughs in disbelief. After she leaves the apartment, George diminishes her as a 'domestic' when Louise protests that the woman is her friend. 'You are East Side and she is West Side,' he declares in his signature booming voice that always seems to take up the entire room. 'And I don't want no crosstown traffic in my kitchen.' Later that episode, we meet the Jeffersons' neighbors, Tom and Helen Willis, the first interracial couple on TV, played by White actor Franklin Cover and Black actress Roxie Roker. In his memoir, Lear describes Cover as 'an extremely white comedic actor … because he had the kind of pure white face that didn't show the slightest sign of assimilation in any direction, at any time over the centuries.' The lumbering Tom would prove an easy verbal punching bag for the quick-witted and pugnacious George. Lear, who died in 2023 at age 101, knew that a mixed marriage could be a sensitive storyline not just for the TV audience, but possibly for cast members, too. He recalled giving Roker an out when he offered her the part of Helen. 'I told Roxie I thought America was ready for it,' he wrote, but also let her know that 'if she felt the least bit squeamish about it I would understand.' Instead, she whipped out her wedding photo. Next to Roker was her White husband, TV news producer Sy Kravitz. 'We've been married for nearly 15 years,' she told Lear. 'Does this answer your question?' Roker also shared a second photo showing their young son, Lenny Kravitz, who would go on to become a rock star. By the end of the second season of 'The Jeffersons,' the normally affable Tom has had it with George constantly calling him 'honky,' leading to one of the most uncomfortable scenes in sitcom history. 'How would you like it if I called you' the n-word, Tom yells, using the epithet. George and Louise recoil with shocked looks on their faces and gasps can be heard in the studio audience, along with some laughter. An irate George calls Tom out for using the slur, but Helen backs her man. 'That's no worse than honky!' she argues, unconvincingly. 'You're right,' George replies. 'Nothing's worse than honky except being married to one.' Years later, Helmsley revealed he didn't enjoy constantly putting down his TV neighbor. 'To say things in people's faces, name-calling, that wasn't me,' he said. Still, people of all stripes grew to adore the tightly wound, confrontational George. Once, Helmsley met a man in Texas who was excited to share his relative's views of the show. As the actor recalled with a laugh, the man told him, 'My grandfather loves your show. He LOVES you. He's the biggest bigot in Texas. But he loves you.'