racial and religious tolerance messages

[zimmerly]

Hey everybody, here's a question for you. I am currently listening to the 1946 episodes. On the episode I listened to today (Oct. 46), Jack came on at the end of the show and made a brief plea for religious and racial tolerance. I can remember a rather long message in a 45ish episode about tolerance, but it was "Brotherhood" day or something like that. I think there might have even been some messages of the same kind around the New Year's episode.
My questions is, were these messages obligatory? Did the sponsor or network require Jack to make them (like some of the rationing or war bonds messages during the war)? They always take me by surprise and take my breath away. Just when I think I couldn't love the show and the man any more...they do something like that.
Think of all the people he could have turned away with that kind of message. I just think it is amazing that he used his show as a platform to try to make progress toward tolerance in the 40s. I think we always think of the 50s and the 60s as the beginning of the fight for civil rights, but there was Jack Benny, fighting for those things in the 40s.

[Mister Kitzel]

Another question may put the Benny message in perspective.

At what time did the American public learn the extent of the mass killing of Jews in Europe?

[zimmerly]

I'm not sure when that happened. I know that I've read that even Edward R. Murrow was shocked when he went to cover the liberating of one of the camps in 1945. I was surprised to learn that. One would think that a news man would have had the inside story long before anybody else.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I so admire Jack Benny for his efforts for social change. He and another one of my favorites, Rod Serling, used the media not just for entertainment, but for good. Serling very often had a social/tolerance message in his stories.

Does anybody know if any of the other top radio performers were doing those kind of public service announcemnts?

[Roman]

I've listened to the Burns & Allen and Bing Crosby radio shows and neither included messages like the ones Jack had at the end of his shows in 1945 and 46. Perhaps other radio shows did but I would imagine that these were unique to the Benny program and were put in because Jack wanted them, not because the network or the government was requesting them.

[helloagain]

I don't recall hearing these type of messages on any other radio show. Could be just another example of what a fine man Mr. Benny was.

[Mandolynn]

Not to detract from Jack at all, but Vincent Price always had what sounded like an extremely heart-felt plea for tolerance and understanding after many of the episodes of "The Saint." I don't know who wrote what he read, but they were very effectively delivered.

[Maxwell Stroud]

I don't recall hearing these type of messages on any other radio show. Could be just another example of what a fine man Mr. Benny was.

Superman had several radio story lines devoted to anti-Klan themes, villians opposed to fair treatment of Vets because of their race or creed, high school basketball players targeted because of their "un-American" names and at least one set of shows about support for the UN (or "World Peace Organization" as they called it) and had Nazis and concentraion camps:

"The Hate Mongers' Organization" (April - May 1946)
"Clan of the Fiery Cross" (June - July 1946)
"Knights of the White Carnation" (February - March 1947) - the three above are Klan/Unamerican rable rouser stories
"The Man Without a Face" (March - April 1947) - this series deals directly with former Nazis and concentration camps.

These are the story lines that pop readily to mind but I'm sure that there are others.