By Laura S. Washington,
In These Times

America was burning. The riots unleashed by the April 4, 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were terrorizing cities across the nation.

Chicago was no exception. Warner Saunders got a desperate call from WLS-TV, the local ABC affiliate. They needed blacks on the air, and they needed them now. So Saunders, who was a community activist and executive director of Chicago's Better Boys Foundation, signed up as co-host of a hastily arranged television special, "For Blacks Only."

The special, which aired in 1968, snared such high ratings that the station gave it a regular slot and kept it going for 10 years. Saunders eventually became a full-time reporter. Today he's the top news anchor at Chicago's NBC station.

READ MORE: http://www.alternet.org/rights/77789/

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