Sesame Street’s Blackness

How Harlem Influenced the Iconic Show

The 1970 cast of Sesame Street. Photo courtesy of TV critic Aaron Barnhart.

For more than half a century, the children’s television program Sesame Street has been beaming into the households of hundreds of millions of viewers throughout the world. The show’s popularity has grown to a point where, in 2018, it was estimated that close to one-third of all Americans (86 million people) had watched the series during their childhood. Sesame Street, having won close to 200 Emmy Awards, is the most decorated children’s program in television history. In his book Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, writer Michael Davis declared the series an American institution by the mid-1980s, and it remains so today. But what many people do not know about Sesame Street is that, according to a New York Times article published ten years after its launch:

“the ‘target child’ was the 4‐year old, inner‐city, black youngster.”

David D. Connell, former vice president for production, also added:

“The focus at the time was on the urban ghetto. Project Head Start had just been born of the same sense of urgency.”

The kernels of the idea for Sesame Street formed during the Civil Rights era. President Lyndon B. Johnson had launched the Great Society initiative, which was an expansive reform plan that included policies, legislation, and programs aimed at eradicating poverty, lowering crime, and countering racial inequality. At the center of the education reform portion was Project Head Start, the brainchild of Johnson and several child development experts. Through the program, Johnson intended to extend early education to poor children in urban communities.

Head Start drew the attention of television producer Joan Ganz Cooney. A proponent for Civil Rights and education, Joan created a Head Start training film for teachers which aired on Channel Thirteen. Titled A Chance at the Beginning, the film featured intervention measures used on at-risk Harlem preschoolers. In 1966, Joan threw a winter dinner party in her New York apartment located half a block from Gramercy Park. One of the guests was Lloyd Morrisett, the future CEO of Carnegie Corporation. Morrisett was in charge of education research at the time and was on the hunt for a preschool program that was targeted at a large number of inner-city children.

Michael Davis said of that pivotal get-together:

“Before good nights were exchanged, the fates of Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett had become entwined like strands of DNA. A professional relationship that spanned five decades started with Morrisett’s ostensibly simple question, ‘Do you think television could be used to teach young children?’”

Joan responded that she did not know, but was willing to discuss it. What resulted was the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW), a production company of which Joan was made executive director on February 15, 1968. Morrisett was also able to raise $8 million in funding from federal and private support, including the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Corporation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. With the use of those funds, the CTW went on to produce Sesame Street.

Children's Television Workshop executor director Joan Ganz Cooney (second from left) is surrounded by black female advisors. Seated left to right are Jane O'Connor, Dorothy Hollingsworth, Allonia Gadsden, and Gwen Peters. Photo courtesy of Ebony magazine.

Rebranded as Sesame Workshop in 2000, the CTW was a fitting sponsor for Sesame Street. It consisted of a production team that included television producers, writers, and directors, as well as a bevy of experts across the fields of education, psychology, child development, social sciences, advertising, and other areas. These experts were on hand to advise the administrative and creative teams as needed. As executive director, Joan was often surrounded by such advisors, some of whom were black educators with an awareness of the various issues that were of importance to urban blacks.

Dr. Chester Pierce—founding president of the Black Psychiatrists of America, and a professor of early childhood education—was concerned about the ill effects television had on young minds. As a black Harvard professor with this perspective, he was instrumental in helping to establish a foundational curriculum for the new preschool show tailored to low-income families, particularly inner-city blacks. Serving as a senior advisor, Dr. Pierce’s contributions resulted in an integrated cast and strong black role models like teacher Gordon Robinson and his wife Susan, who were leading characters during the first season. The Gordon family became a fixture on the show and expanded while other human characters were sidelined in favor of more diverse Muppets.

The set for Sesame Street developed in 1968 as a result of a televised public service announcement (PSA) shot in Harlem. Producer Jon Stone was hired to create a sales film that would act as a fitting preview for the series currently in development. But he had so little to work with, he was bereft of ideas for the set design. As the TV spot ran, a sensational message flashed on-screen:

“Send your kid to a ghetto this summer.”

This was followed by a Harlem street scene (shot in the spring of 1968), with black actor Lincoln Kilpatrick leading viewers on a tour of the neighborhood. He mockingly referred to fire hydrants as pools, and streets lined with cars where kids played stickball were called ballfields. Field trips depicted dirty lots strewn with trash and cozy camp cabins were crowded inner-city apartment bedrooms, where three to four black children were packed into a bed. Kilpatrick ended his travelogue by saying:

“You don’t want your kids to play here this summer? Then don’t expect ours to.”

The TV spot closes by asking viewers to give jobs, money, and care to the cause. Jon Stone was inspired. In the book Street Gang, he explained his immediate takeaway:

“For a preschool child in Harlem, the street is where the action is…. Our set had to be an inner-city street, and more particularly it had to be a brownstone so the cast and kids could ‘stoop’ in the age-old New York tradition….”

Stone met with a friend the next day, a set designer named Charles Rosen. Rosen was currently working on a feature film and led Stone on a tour of the studio. Stone marveled at the impressive touches designers and artists made to a set that served as the backstage room of a jazz club. Though the materials used to build it were new, they had been aged and distressed to make the club look like a dive. The designers spared no details in making the artificial grit look authentic. Stone decided then and there that he wanted a movie set along these lines for the new preschool show that would emerge as Sesame Street. No television set with the usual cardboard and canvas backdrops would do. Stone told Rosen:

Educator and actress Loretta Long as Susan stands left. She is pictured with children on the stoop of the familiar Sesame Street brownstone. Photo courtesy of Ebony magazine.

“I want it to be as real as this room, and I want you to design and build it.” 

With that, Rosen went forth scouting locations throughout Harlem and nearby neighborhoods, of which he took various photographs and drew sketches. The result was the familiar brownstone at 123 Sesame Street millions of viewers have come to know and love.

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This article appears in 45 People, Places, and Events in Black History You Should Know.

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