America 1982-Chapter 355 - 33: Goodnight, America
On May 6, 1988, a Friday, after more than a year of preparation, BT Television’s network finally officially launched.
With 112 affiliated television stations, BT Television’s program coverage reached 37 states and 102 cities.
Inside the BT Television studio, 112 color TV screens displayed in real-time to the people inside what programs the 112 television stations were currently broadcasting to their viewers.
At 18:29:59, Tommy pressed the launch button.
As the launch button was pressed, the 112 screens on the walls of the studio immediately changed from chaotic to unified - a pure black screen with the letters BTTV and the channel LOGO appeared, below which was a phrase.
"Be Tale Crazy".
That was BT Television’s promotional phrase, embedding the initials BT that represented the television station, and also indicating the style of BT Television.
Provocative, stimulating, challenging tradition, and walking on the edge of morality and law.
All employees of BT Television in the studio clapped vigorously; they had worked hard for this day to come.
After displaying the channel’s logo, the screen switched to a brightly lit news studio, where a middle-aged African-American man weighing at least 250 pounds rested his left forearm on the desk. His round eyes stared into the camera as he began the "Today’s Black News" program. Despite the director signaling him to start, he meticulously took one final powerful suck through the straw, draining his cola before putting the can beneath the desk. Then with a composed expression, he said:
"Welcome to BTTV, you’re watching ’Today’s Black News’. I know many of you in front of the TV are puzzled right now. First, let me assure you that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with your TV set, so don’t worry about spending money on repairs. Secondly, suppress the urge to pick up the phone and call the police; I’m not some damn terrorist who’s hijacked the station. I’m a news anchor, look, here’s my work ID. It says, Kevin Cedric, Chief Anchor for BTTV News Channel. It doesn’t mention that I’m also a VIP major spender at the KFC across from BT Television, and considered the ’best potential customer’ by the sales consultant at Madison Gym diagonally across from us."
"Here at BTTV, the black folks’ own TV station, ’Today’s Black News’, where I, a black man, run the show, truly caring about the news for you, my fellow black people. Let’s cut to the chase since you’ll be seeing me every day at this time from now on; so no need to act like those presidents and secretaries of state who offer hollow concerns through the screen. Let’s get real. I’ll start with the first piece of news, which I believe is incredibly important to black people—if you’re black, it is definitely significant."
"More than twenty years ago, on September 15, 1963, there was the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Black folks over forty should still remember it—several white KKK members detonated explosives there, killing four lovely black little girls, and injuring over twenty of our black brothers and sisters who then needed hospital treatment. So many years have flown by; had those four thirteen-year-old girls lived, they would be about my age today, sitting comfortably on their sofas, watching TV with their families. You might say, of course, we remember. They did not die in vain; Kevin, even Martin Luther King and many black people back then held protests for them, and the government eventually, under the black community’s outcry, introduced various civil rights acts. They did not die for nothing..." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎
"Let me tell you some truth that no other TV station will tell you folks; this morning, the ringleader of that bombing passed away in a nursing home—he lived to be 81, not dying from electric shock, not from hanging, and he didn’t even spend a single day in jail for killing those four black girls or for the over twenty injured black people, not one damn day! Using all sorts of legal loopholes, insufficient evidence, feigning illness, swaying public opinion, and the like, he delayed his trial over and over again for more than twenty years. From start to finish, he never apologized for killing black people and eventually died of old age in a nursing home. Reportedly, over two hundred white supremacists visited him before his death; the nursing home even provided him with end-of-life care and had a priest help him into the damn heaven..."
"Honestly, when my editor told me about this, I thought he was lying. How could this be possible? We’re living in the damn United States of America. My editor also looked at me seriously and said, ’Why not? We’re living in the damn United States of America!’"
"Tell me, where have you heard or seen this news other than on my program? Which newspaper, which TV news program, which radio broadcast? Do you now understand the importance of seeing me every day? The truth about black people."
"Because I will tell you some things those white people never want us to know, hoping we stay forever ignorant fools. I won’t let them succeed. That’s why I’m on your TV screens; I’m here to tell every black person the truth they have the right to know. And now, for the second news story..."
While everyone else was still glued to the screen, Tommy quietly turned around and walked out of the broadcast hall.
From the moment he started the TV station, he knew those at the bottom of the social ladder in the black community would not reject the programs he had carefully prepared. He believed that other networks wouldn’t ignore the white audience as completely as he did in favor of producing a series of original programs tailored for black people, even FOX.
