More than 50 years later the new streaming channel NBC Peacock Network will broadcast a feature this Thursday with Entertainer and Activist Harry Belafonte who's now in his 90's. It's time to take another look back at that content then re-visited now through the prism of updated context for those troubled times, noting that two of the panelists - Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy - were assassinated that year.
Here is the first of one review from Chicago Sun Times
Entertainer and activist Harry Belafonte was handpicked by Johnny Carson to guest host a week of “Tonight Show” episodes spotlighting politicians and entertainers of color.
‘The Sit-In’ flashes back to a momentous week on ‘The Tonight Show’ When Harry Belafonte filled in for Johnny Carson in 1968, he gave a platform to important voices of the day, from Aretha Franklin to the Rev. Martin Luther King.
One of the most extraordinary weeks of late-night talk shows in television history.
". . .As we learn in the Peacock documentary “The Sit-In,” as America was in the midst in one of the most tumultuous periods in its history, at the height of the Tet Offensive and with social protests dominating the newscasts, Johnny Carson wanted to give a platform to politicians and entertainers of color — but he also thought his middle-of-the-road, largely apolitical style wouldn’t be the right fit. So, Carson approached the great entertainer-activist Harry Belafonte about hosting a week’s worth of shows out of the NBC Studios in New York City, with Belafonte choosing the guests.
Fifteen of the 25 guests that week were persons of color. Belafonte would open with a song and then welcome guests ranging from comedians (Bill Cosby, Nipsey Russell, the Smothers Brothers) to musical performers (Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick) to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King — neither of whom would survive the year.
Even the now 93-year-old Belafonte seems taken aback when he’s handed a list of guests that week. “Oh my God, I had all these people?” he says with a smile. . ."
“The Tonight Show” became a “sit-in,” as Belafonte described it in a full-page ad he took out to thank his guests and the “Tonight Show” staffers.
We learn all kinds of illuminating factoids, e.g., Paul Newman had never done a TV talk show until the invitation came from Belafonte, and when an NBC executive heard Dr. King had been booked, he said, “He’s not going to get into that civil rights stuff, is he?”
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The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show, Sept. 10
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5 days ago - ... debuting on NBC streamer Peacock next Thursday, September 10? ... Peacock has not said if The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight ...
