ABSTRACT
Harvard Psychiatrist Dr. Chester M. Pierce identified educational institutions and mass media, particularly television as the worst enemies of Black people because they fostered racist attitudes in whites and inflicted damage on young Black children’s self-esteem. Pierce regarded racism as a mental illness and public health problem so for him, consulting on Sesame Street was an opportunity to inoculate the youngest and most vulnerable members of society against a serious mental health threat. Pierce helped craft a “hidden curriculum” for the show that broadcast a vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Beloved Community to millions of young, impressionable viewers across the nation. Sesame Street not only spread a vision of tolerance for diversity, it also created an audience for puppetry in the United States that had never existed on such a scale before. In particular with more opportunities to see puppetry on the television sets in their own homes, more African Americans were inspired to become puppeteers. This chapter explores the work of African American object performance artists who learned much of their craft from mass media and use social media platforms to engage audiences.
