ABSTRACT
The August 1963 March on Washington emphasized the tight connections between the civil rights movement and television, in part through the unprecedented collaboration of the three networks in order to televise as much of the event as possible, but also through the messages protestors produced. In The Expanding Vista: American Television in the Kennedy Years, Mary Ann Watson notes that:
Thousands of signs were carried in Washington that day. One banner-referring to the long-running series “Lassie”—read, ‘LOOK MOM! Dogs Have TV Shows. NEGROES DON’T!’ Whoever painted the message on that sign intuited the potency of entertainment in shaping values and attitudes. The integration of prime-time television was as important as the integration of public transportation and education.1
