On this edition of In Black America, producer/host John L. Hanson Jr. presents part one of a two-part discussion with Carmen Fields, Emmy Award–winning broadcast news journalist and author of Going Back To T-Town: The Ernie Fields Territory Big Band.
As a child growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Fields heard her father tell stories about life on the road touring with his 17-piece orchestra in the 1920s, '30s and '40s. In the mid-1980s she decided to record those memories from her father.
Fields talks about the talented musicians her father played with, how he became a big band leader, how he maintained his optimism even while he faced entrenched racial prejudice and threats of violence, and the legacy he left.
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