Bird of the Iron Feather is an American television soap opera that aired on the National Educational Television network from January 19 to March 6, 1970. Created by script writer and radio producer Richard Durham, the series was notable as the first all-Black television soap opera. Bird of the Iron Feather starred African American actor Bernard Ward as fictional Chicago Police Detective Jonah Rhodes. The series addressed social issues like racism, school desegregation and the complicated relationship between Black people and the police. Produced in Chicago, Illinois, the series won a Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award, and was the highest-rated local show ever broadcast by WTTW-TV in Chicago.

Bird of the Iron Feather centers on fictional Black Chicago Police Detective Jonah Rhodes (Bernard Ward), who is killed during the 1966 Chicago West Side riots. Stories are told via flashbacks based on his diary, discovered in his police station locker after his death by his nemesis, Sergeant Harry Vines (Milton Lamb). Thirty-five-year-old Jonah is married to Jean (Yolande Bryant), and is responsible for his three younger siblings and grandmother.^[1][2] He studies law at night, and as a cop is "caught in a web between being suspected as a white man's informer of the growing Black rebellion, and an ally to the militants."^[2]

The series addressed topics of interest to the African American community from their perspective, including racism, poverty, school desegregation, police corruption and brutality, and the complicated relationship between Black people and police.^[3][4] Bird of the Iron Feather questioned the treatment of disabled people on welfare with a storyline about Jonah's deaf relatives, and addressed Vietnam War veterans in the episode "The Sermon".^[5] Another storyline, in the episode "The Target", was inspired by the real-life 1969 Chicago Black Panthers police raid during which Black Panther Party members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were killed by police.^[5] Over the course of the series, Jonah is shown to be "increasingly sympathetic to Black militants, in conflict with his original plans for promotion, more money, a move to the suburbs."^[6]

Set in Chicago's South Side, the show's primary settings include Rhodes' Chicago police station, the Rhodes family kitchen and the fictional Funky Frank's Bar.^[4][6]

Irna Phillips, the creator of radio and daytime television soap operas from the 1930s to the 1960s, suggested in a mid-1960s on-air interview with Chicago's Channel 11 WTTW-TV program director Edward L. Morris that the soap opera format might work on educational television.^[7] Hoping to recreate the success of Cancion de la Raza, a 70-episode drama about a Mexican American family which had aired from October 1968 through January 1969 on KCET in Los Angeles, WTTW conceived a series it called More from My Life which would explore "some of the socioeconomic problems affecting Black Chicagoans."^[7][8] In October 1968, WTTW applied for a $750,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, which owned the National Educational Television network and had a program that funded non-commercial educational stations.^[7] In spring 1969, the Ford Foundation awarded WTTW $600,000 to produce 100 episodes of their new series.^[7][9]

On July 7, 1969, WTTW hired writer and radio producer Richard Durham to create the show.^[1] An editor at Muhammad Speaks, a Nation of Islam newspaper in Chicago, Durham had previously created the Black radio soap opera Here Comes Tomorrow and the weekly radio drama Destination Freedom.^[9][10] He was inspired by stories he heard from Black Chicago police detective Jack Cole and younger Black officers Edward "Buzz" Palmer and Renault Robinson of corruption, racism and retaliation within the police department.^[1] Durham hired Cole, Palmer and Robinson as script consultants.^[1] The series was described as a "soul drama" by the press.^[6][9]

Executive producer Clarence McIntosh auditioned nearly 500 actors for the all-Black cast.^[1] The potential series drew local attention, and thanks to pressure from several Black community and religious groups united as the Coalition for United Community Action, the production ultimately included a number of Black writers, directors and technicians.^[1][11][12] Two Black directors, Roy Inman and Harold C. Johnson, were hired to alternate with WTTW's white staff directors, Peter Strand and Louis Abraham.^[13] Durham contracted pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, leader of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, to serve as composer for the series and create the show's theme, with lyrics by Durham and his son Mark Durham.^[13] Oscar Brown Jr. sang the theme.^[13] Durham changed the show's title to Bird of the Iron Feather, which came from an 1847 speech by abolitionist Frederick Douglass in which he said that Blacks in America were "birds of iron feathers unable to fly to freedom."^[7][9]

WTTW originally planned to produce five half-hour episodes per week for six months, for a total of 100 episodes.^[14] Durham and McIntosh soon realized that they could not produce a high quality show for $6,000 per episode, and pressed for a reduced number of episodes.^[14] By November 1969, delays and escalating costs prompted the Ford Foundation to reduce the order to 35 episodes, to air Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the 7:30 pm time slot.^[14] Bird of the Iron Feather debuted on January 19, 1970.^[5] A Federal Communications Commission complaint about the use of a racial slur and other language prohibited by the FCC in the episode "Speaking of Dreams" prompted the show to be moved to a 9:30 pm time slot with an "adult viewing" disclaimer.^[5][6] Ultimately, Bird of the Iron Feather ran for 21 episodes before production ran out of funds.^[11][12][15] The final episode aired on Friday, March 6, 1970.^[15]

In September 1970, months after the show's cancellation, the Coalition for United Community Action accused Channel 11 of blocking the national airplay of Bird of the Iron Feather.^[16] WTTW subsequently received $17,000 from the Ford Foundation to support airing episodes on PBS, NET's replacement, and 13 episodes aired on member stations in September 1971.^[16]

Only two complete episodes of the series ("His-Story and Mine" and "The Last Payment") and some fragments are known to have survived, thanks to the efforts of private collector J. Fred MacDonald.^{[3][17][18][19][20]} MacDonald sold his archive to the US Library of Congress for $2 million in 2010.^[21][22][23]

• Bernard Ward as Chicago Police Detective Jonah Rhodes^[6][13]
• Yolande Bryant as Jean Rhodes, Jonah's wife^[6]
• Ira William Rogers as Funky Frank,^[18][19] Jonah's uncle and owner of the local bar^[2]
• Milton Lamb as Police Sergeant Harry Vines,^[18][19] a competitor for Jonah's position who tends to make trouble for Jonah to further his own career^[2]
• Melva Williams as Ethel^[18][19]
• Suki Jones as Maybelle Rhodes,^[18] Jonah's younger sister^[2]
• Nol Tinner as Maceo Rhodes Jr., Jonah's younger brother^[2]
• Katie Brown as Miss Brown, Jonah's deaf-mute aunt.^[15] The actress, deaf-mute herself, held a master's degree in psychology and taught sign language at a Jewish vocational guidance school.^[6]
• Robert Brown as Jonah's deaf-mute uncle. The actor was the real-life husband of Katie Brown, and also deaf-mute.^[15]
• Curly Ellison as Maceo Rhodes Sr., Jonah's father^[1][15]
• Louise Pruitt Dumetz Hodges as Sara, Jonah's grandmother^[1][15]
• David McKnight as Danny Bracy^[24]
• Ronald Dean as Abe Murdock^[19][25]
• Charles Walker as Lester Tucker^[19][25]

A surviving series promotional excerpt on kinescope includes several scenes, including one from the lost episode "One of the Worst Days of My Life" in which a young African American is shot by a white police officer after running away. All excerpts are from lost episodes.^[20]

Bird of the Iron Feather was the highest-rated local show ever broadcast by WTTW-TV in Chicago.^[11] Life noted in April 1970 that ratings for the series were "high enough to have assured the series syndication by at least 40 educational stations around the country this year."^[6] Lee Bey of WBEZ described Bird of the Iron Feather as "an unflinching look at the harsh realities of ghetto life."^[3] Calling the show "television's first attempt to portray life in the Black ghetto as it is actually lived", Life also described it as "an authentic, controversial portrayal of Black ghetto life" and praised its "gutsy reality that is missing from white-washed Black-life shows like Julia".^[6] Sergio Mims noted, "the acting is stiff and the production values are meager [but] ... it's the content that counts."^[27]

On May 25, 1970, executive producer Clarence McIntosh was awarded a Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Local Series for Bird of the Iron Feather.^[16][28][29] The award was presented by Chicago talk show host Lee Phillip,^[29] who with her husband William J. Bell would later co-create the daytime soap operas The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful.^[30]