Journey of a Black man in advertising...Part One

Little did I know that the documentary films I created about social issues, and the television interviews I conducted with legendary African American politicians and entertainers would lead me to a life in advertising. But that's what happened.

My journey started in the spring of 1970 just after I returned to Dayton, Ohio, from the University of Santa Clara where I had completed my undergraduate studies. I began working on my masters in political science at the University of Dayton with an eye toward the fall semester when I was to become the assistant director for the new African American studies program, and a full-time instructor teaching historical and contemporary black political thought and philosophy.

It was a fascinating time, for sure, and often a volatile one -- the Soledad Brothers, Angela Davis, the Weathermen, SDS, Patty Hearst, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale and the Black Panther Party, the Vietnam War, rioting in the cities.... Protests and boycotts were the order of the day on college campuses. The “massacre” of students by members of the National Guard on the campus of Kent State would occur two weeks after I returned to Dayton.

I settled into a house with my best friend from California, Peter, and began my studies. Shortly thereafter I received a call from a local high school teacher, Ed Clay, who wanted me to give a “guest lecture” on black history to his senior history class at Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School. The students were excited to learn aspects of African American history and politics they had not heard before. It was an enlightening experience for all.

That summer I continued my graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I also fell madly in love with a wonderful woman I shall always remember. But that's another story. I was in Madison to study African and African American politics and literature with a group of faculty members from around the country. All of us were preparing for the fall term when we would be teaching ethnic studies at our respective colleges and universities.

I'll never forget the August morning when we awoke to discover that the east wing of Sterling Hall had been bombed, we found out, by SDS. Sterling Hall was the math building that also housed the physics department. SDS later said they had intended only to destroy the building and not hurt anyone, but a 33-year-old physics researcher who happened to be working there in the late night/early morning hours of August 24, 1970, when the bomb was detonated, had been instantly killed.

After returning to Dayton a few weeks later I begin teaching the fall semester. I received a call from Ed, who had left teaching to become assistant director for community affairs at the local AVCO television station, WLWD. He asked if I would help him create an hour-long, monthly show by and for the black community in Dayton. We agreed to meet at the television station to discuss the project. The day of the meeting I walked into the station and immediately knew this world, in some way, shape or form, was ultimately going to be my world. I was smitten.

When we were little kids my father and all my uncles had 8mm film cameras, so we were forever watching home movies. I later learned it was my father who introduced my mother’s family to 8mm film, and my brothers and cousins and I often made our own home movies, usually cowboys and Indians, and loved watching them. The families would get together to watch 8mm films of picnics, vacations, holidays and so much more. But it was not until that day, when I entered the television station in Dayton, Ohio, for my meeting with Ed that it all started to come together. I didn’t know how those feelings would manifest themselves but I immediately agreed to work with Ed on the development of the show – even without pay. It was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. My journey began.