In celebration of the 70th anniversary of The Open Mind in May, Alexander Heffner is looking back on the legacy begun by his grandfather Richard D. Heffner
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Alexander tells PEOPLE that his grandfather's 1957 interview with Martin Luther King Jr. "is up there with the Gettysburg Address"
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In May, Alexander will launch the special "Mayors of the World" series in honor of the milestone anniversary
Years before the world would hear Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963,Richard D. Heffnersat down with the reverend in an episode of his then-newly establishedThe Open Mindtelevision program.
The February 1957 sit-down was many viewers’ “first encounter with Dr. King,” Heffner, a New York City native who also taught at Rutgers University, says in aretrospective introductionto the video shot decades later.
“I felt constrained to brief [viewers] on who he was; on what, indeed, his growing involvement was in what remains today perhaps our most confounding national issue: race relations in America,” he adds.
And now, in celebration of the program’s 70th anniversary in May, Heffner’s grandson Alexander — who took over as host in 2014 following his grandfather’s death in 2013 at age 88, is reflecting on the interview’s impact and how he’s continuing the show’s legacy all these years later.
“He wanted to give a platform to King in civil rights when that was not just out of the mainstream, it was completely devoid in the dialogue on TV in 1957,” Alexander, 36, tells PEOPLE, adding, “To my knowledge, it is the first broadcast appearance that King made on national television.”
In the episode, titled “The New Negro,” Richard sat down with King and a White South Carolina judge named Julius Waties Waring, “who was there kind of in a protector capacity,” Alexander says. (Waring's dissent in 1952's Briggs v. Elliott, in which he opined that "segregation is per se inequality," laid some groundwork for the Supreme Court's ruling in 1954's Brown v. Board of Education that led to the desegregation of public schools in the U.S.)
“He was the ambassador to King because not only was it completely irreverent and unconventional to have a discussion about civil rights,” he says. “The presence of this judge was making it arguably credible to the audience who was vouching for King.”
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The conversation, Alexander notes, speaks to the crux of what the show has tried to do over its seven decades on air.
“To this day, to me, that interview is up there with the Gettysburg Address, and just King himself and what was illuminated through the conversation, to me, that's the America that we aspire to, the dream that became more publicized as King grew in recognition. But he really, in so many ways, gave birth to it onThe Open Mind,” Alexander says.
He adds, “And then over the years, I think that's the philosophy that he brought to the series and that I've attempted to carry forward, which is there's no topic that is too controversial if it's approached in a fair-minded way.”
Following two seasons of his seriesBreaking Bread with Alexander —where he spoke to and shared a meal with — various politicians on both sides of the aisle, Alexander is launching a new special called “Mayors of the World” in celebration ofThe Open Mind’s 70th anniversary.
“I'm just super psyched that I can introduce our viewers on PBS to, like King back in '57, some of these unknown leaders who are making a difference every day,” he says of the upcoming program, which premieres in May. “And whether Olivia Chow in Toronto becomes a Prime Minister of Canada or Mayor Dickens in Atlanta becomes President of the United States I can't say, but I can say that these are people committed to the public good.”
In addition to Dickens and Chow, “Mayors of the World” will feature Haris Doukas, the mayor of Athens; Carlos Moedas, the mayor of Lisbon; Stephan Keller, the mayor of Düsseldorf; Henriette Reker, the mayor of Cologne; Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami; Mike Duggan, the mayor of Detroit; Mario Desbordes, the mayor of Santiago; and Michelle Bachelet, ex-president of Chile.
The Open Mindairs weekly on PBS.
Read the original article onPeople
