Emilie Raymond is author of “Stars for Freedom: Hollywood, Black Celebrities, and the Civil Rights Movement.”
On this edition of the Nixon Now podcast, we take a look at Hollywood’s influence on the Civil Rights movement and the White House’s work in race relations. To discuss this is Dr. Emilie Raymond, Associate Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University. An accomplished author, she has written two books about celebrity influence in U.S. politics, “From My Cold, Dead Hands: Charlton Heston and American Politics” and her latest, “Stars for Freedom: Hollywood, Black Celebrities, and the Civil Rights Movement.”
Highlights
— Representation of blacks in Hollywood at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement.
— The influence of Sammy Davis Jr., Harry Belafonte, Sydney Potier on the Civil Rights movement, and their relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
— President Nixon’s relationship with Sammt Davis Jr., and attempts to bring the entertainer into the Nixon administration.
— Sammy Davis Jr. and other African Americans’ involvement in President Nixon’s political campaigning.
— Civil Rights messages in movies in the 1950s and 1960s.
Photo: President Nixon and Sammy Davis Jr. address youth at the Republic National Convention in Miami on August 22, 1972 (AP)