BIRD OF THE IRON FEATHER (1970) – This African American drama was produced for Chicago’s educational station WTTW. The storied black radio and television pioneer Richard Durham created and wrote this soap opera/ soul drama that originally was to air every weekday like network soap operas did.
Durham was hoping to replicate the success of Los Angeles educational station KCET with their five day a week soap opera Cancion de la Raza, about a Mexican-American family. That program aired for 70 episodes from October 1968 to January 1969.
WTTW was approved for a $600,000 grant to produce one hundred 30-minute episodes of a series dramatizing the contemporary experiences of black Chicagoans. The title Bird of the Iron Feather was a reference to the 1847 Frederick Douglass speech in which he described African Americans as “birds of iron feathers unable to fly to freedom.”
Richard Durham decided to center the series around black Chicago police detective Jonah Rhodes (Bernard Ward), his wife Jean (Yolande Bryant) and his uncle “Funky” Frank Rhodes (Ira William Rogers), who owned Funky Frank’s Bar, an establishment where several characters would hang out. Continue reading
Balladeer's Blog 