The American Stranger
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
Host: Albert E. Burke
Corporate
Contributor: WNBC (Television station : West Hartford, Conn.)
Contributor: Peabody Collection
(Abstract description courtesy of Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collections)