Watch Nina Simone sing ‘To Be Young, Gifted, and Black’ on ‘Sesame Street’
Civil rights for African-Americans were still very much at the forefront of the American political sphere in 1972. Although the initial movement was said to have peaked with the 1964 Civil Rights Act, protests over segregation and discrimination never ceased. A new strain of militant black power was beginning to take hold, most notably through the Black Panther Party, an organisation that promoted education and food drives as well as self-defence.
More than anything else, education and exposure on a national level helped promote peaceful relations between races. That education had to start young, and Sesame Street recognised that need in 1969 when broadcast its first episode. Helmed by Muppets creator Jim Henson, the children’s programme featured one of the first racially integrated casts on American television. The visibility of different races solving problems, learning new things, and living harmoniously seems obvious now, but it was a controversial stance to take at the end of the tumultuous 1960s.
In fact, Sesame Street was briefly banned in Mississippi, Henson’s home state, in 1970. It was deemed that the state wasn’t ready for an integrated television show. “The State Commission for Educational Television has vetoed the showing of Sesame Street, regarded as one of the leading pre‐school educational television series, on the state ETV system because of racial grounds,” The New York Times wrote at the time.
“A member of the commission said, ‘Some of the members of the commission were very much opposed to showing the series because it uses a highly integrated cast of children.’ The same member who asked not to be identified said, ‘Mainly the commission members felt that Mississippi was not yet ready for it.’”
Sesame Street excelled in finding famous figures to help communicate basic ideas to kids. Everyone from Stevie Wonder to Dave Grohl has appeared on the show over the years, and in 1972, singer and activist Nina Simone was welcomed as a guest star. As was her way, Simone opted to forgo simple lessons like arithmetic and manners to sing a song about positive black identity.
‘To Be Young, Gifted, and Black’ was first introduced by Simone at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969. Later that year, she recorded the song for live album Black Gold. Simone penned the song as a tribute to her friend Lorraine Hansberry, the author of A Raisin in the Sun, who was a fellow advocate before dying of pancreatic cancer in 1965 at the age of 34.
“We never talked about men or clothes,” Simone wrote in her memoir, I Put a Spell on You, “It was always Marx, Lenin and revolution—real girls’ talk.” The lessons and inspirations that Hansberry had on Simone would continue to resonate through Simone’s music for decades. When she eventually made her way to Sesame Street, Simone made sure that a group of young kids understood how exceptional it was to be young, gifted, and black.
Watch Simone sing ‘To Be Young, Gifted, and Black’ on Sesame Street down below.
