Abstract
"The American Stranger""Dr. Albert E. Burke brings to the Connecticut and Massachusetts television
audience the little-known facts behind the well-known headlines. Through the
eyes and ears of this scholar, the true significance of developments around the
world is presented in a weekly analysis which, the station says, has evoked
tremendous public response."--1958 Peabody Digest.
Burke uses the story of Pima
Indian Ira Hayes, one of the six marines to raise the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima in
WWII, to illustrate the U.S. government's treatment of Native Americans. He
refers to an NBC program, "The American stranger," which had recently provoked
widespread public outrage, and to a defensive response issued by the Department
of the Interior. Burke says the program was accurate and cites examples of
treaty-breaking on the part of the government, and of lawbreaking on the part of
wealthy whites, whom he compares to the fictitious greedy rancher Elder Conklin,
a character in a Frank Harris short story by the same name. He gives examples of
Native American contributions to farming and medicine and says that Benjamin
Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were inspired by the governmental structures of
the Five United Indian Nations. Includes footage of the raising of the U.S. flag
on Iwo Jima, the Pima reservation, and Coolidge Dam
Note
- Title supplied from film. Credit and cast information compiled from Peabody
Awards entry form and supplemental documentation
- Entry to the 1958 Peabody Awards, News category
- Running time: 27:00
- Sponsored by Hartford Bank and Trust Company, with commercials at the
beginning, middle and end of the program
- Originally broadcast December 1958
Credit Note
- a WNBC production ; [producer, writer, Albert E. Burke ; director, Jerry
Moring]
Participant Note
Corporate
- Contributor: WNBC (Television station : West Hartford, Conn.)
- Contributor: Peabody Collection
(Abstract description courtesy of
Walter
J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collections)