Series: The Ten O'Clock News
Date: 1991-03-28
Duration: 01:02:48

Subject: African American; Race relations; Radio stations; White supremacy movements
People: Brown, Sterling; Duke, David; Fields, Carmen; Shuttlesworth, Fred;

Clip Description
Carmen Fields reports on the history and present activities of the Ku Klux Klan. Fields notes that recent statistics show an increase in hate crimes. She adds that membership in the Ku Klux Klan has increased. Fields' report includes footage from Eyes on the Prize of an interview with Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, footage of Ku Klux Klan ceremonies and graphic shots of lynching victims. Fields talks about murders and lynchings by the Klan. She reports that the Ku Klux Klan turned out in large numbers to stop a march honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. (American civil rights leader) in Forsythe County, Georgia. Fields' report includes footage of the march in Forsythe County. Fields notes that David Duke (Louisiana state representative) is a former Ku Klux Klan member who has founded a new white advocacy group. Fields' report is accompanied by footage of Duke in the studios of WHDH radio and by footage from A Walk Through the Twentieth Century with Bill Moyers. Fields' report includes footage of Sterling Brown (poet) reading a poem about a lynching.

This edition of the Ten O'Clock News also included the following items:
Controversy surrounds David Duke's visit to Boston
David Duke speaks in Boston

Avi Nelson and Dianne Wilkerson talk about quotas and civil rights
Quotas and civil rights

Series Description
A local program aimed at the Boston audience, The Ten O'Clock News debuted on January 15, 1976. Its two immediate predecessors were The Reporters and Evening Compass. A news and public affairs show focusing on neighborhood, local and state issues, The Reporters was produced and broadcast on WGBH from 1970 to 1973. The Reporters was then replaced by Evening Compass, which expanded into a twice-nightly news broadcast during the tense moments of Boston's busing crisis. On the air from 1973 to 1975, Evening Compass found an audience through its in-depth coverage of school desegregation in Boston, which began in 1974. The Ten O'Clock News stood out as an in-depth news program. It strove for a balance between local and national stories, between politics and the Arts. The last The Ten O'Clock News program was broadcast on May 30, 1991.

See also: http://main.wgbh.org/ton/programs/7948_02