The first black sitcom originated from a radio program, “Amos ‘n’ Andy,” in which two white men portrayed the characters, acting as what they thought to be poor and black.” When adapted to television, “it was the first show to have an all-black cast, to talk about the black community, but it was obviously still othered.
The first Black person on TV may have been Broadway star Ethel Waters, who hosted a one-off variety show on NBC on June 14, 1939, when television was still being developed. The medium evolved over the next decade as TVs became a household fixture, but roles for Black actors did not, with most being relegated to playing servants or providing comic relief.
Waters herself would make history in 1950 as the first African American to star in a show, Beulah, a sitcom about a maid serving a bungling white family, who got her employers out of scrapes in every episode. But the show, like its contemporary, Amos and Andy, relied heavily on caricatures of Black characters for laughs.
It wasn’t until the 1970s where you see television come to fruition talking about real social issues, and particularly it comes to black television shows in the 70s. Sitcoms like Sanford and Son, Good Times and The Jeffersons look at black communities and do a better job of showing them in a realistic light. These are shows about families trying to run a business or trying to make ends meet.
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