John Forbes and Frank Dawson

00:07 My name is John Forbes.

00:10 May 77 today is Monday, January 27th, 2020 and where I'm in Santa Monica.

00:22 And the name of my interview partner is my name is Frank Dawson. Well, my legal name is Francis Regis Dawson 3rd, but I am known as Frank Dawson. And today is Monday January 27th, 2020 and we're located here in Santa Monica, California again my full name since you said Francis, I guess I tell my full name is John MacArthur Forbes and is quite naturally. Everyone will know when the my car for came from during World War II my aunt made me that in the ad for the record. Also. I am 70 years old and I'll write you remember how we met and everything that how that went down.

01:14 I believe I believe from I believe it was when I was at Universal Ryan. Everybody was saying Frank you need to meet you. I mean everybody was telling me John you need to meet Frank Dawson not say who is Frank God's not that time I was

01:33 An independent producer in the industry and they said yeah, it's just young black guy who's over it Universal, and so somebody was telling you the same thing, but they need to do you need to meet me? So anyway, I put that call into you.

01:55 Yeah, I put a call into you and that's that the beginning of her what I consider a great relationship over the last what thirty-some years or whatever right John and I became really really close friends and a connection that we found out is someone said you both went to college at Syracuse and then when we met and had a conversation that turned out that we both went through the same graduate program Syracuse a different time and a different times, but it was kind of relevant because there was so few African-Americans that had gone through that program was significant that we had both gone through this program was like while you went to Syracuse and that that kind of like opened up the door for a stronger relationship black African Americans were

02:46 In your class on at that time 303 of us you were you were alone when it's right. Now with four of us all where they gave us for scholarships for scholarships to black students because he was tired of hearing the movie industry talk about they couldn't find Qualified blacks and you know, I'm strange that I haven't been able to find those other three, but you know, I've been in the industry ever since. Oh man, we had less less of us a few years later. That's a whole nother story about both of our Journeys through the television industry exactly.

03:34 Do you know I'm always fascinated because one of the things we do that.

03:42 What every three years we go back to Syracuse for the alumni assoc black Alumni Association reunions of all the basic graduates from that time, but one of the things that I always enjoy it because we would always take the trip from La go through New York City and then go to Syracuse and it was always interesting cuz I've never seen a person and even to this day is proud of their as proud as they are as growing up in one area, you know, and you talk about New York growing up.

04:24 And in New York, so you know that was like that was fascinating. I was born in Harlem New York in 1949. And when we were when I was about two years old my family moved down to a public housing project on the lower east side of Manhattan in the lytic projects and when my when I was about five my dad left and moved out and so my mother raised the three of us, I'll make you a great lady of my mother. My mother was always say anything that's good about me is because of my mother everything else I claim for myself, but the Lower East Side at that time was so vibrant people talk about, you know, Lori side being a Melting Pot and I will say it wasn't a Melting Pot it was gumbo because it wasn't like all the different backgrounds the merged into one.

05:24 Call kept our own cultural identities. And so we had the Italians in Little Italy. We had the Chinese in Chinatown. We had most of the Jewish folks who lived in the co-op's we had Porto Rican those who lived in the tenements and African Americans who lived in the projects project co-ops in the projects are Public public housing rent. This is determined by what the income of your family is and you know, what's it's you know, what's really seriously working class in the co-op's people purchase their own apartments and so to have a little bit of Bank of a bit of money and a little bit different but we all share this same Community, which was wonderful cuz we shared in each other's cultures. I always say I didn't I really didn't know what a white person was, you know, we didn't call them white people. You know Italians were Italian, you know, Jewish people Jewish people and it was until you know, I integrated a boarding school that I found out who white people are really were but we

06:24 We all need a shared in each other's houses. We learned each other's cultures and we appreciated each other's culture. And I think that was that was a wonderful thing just an aside to that, you know part of my life. I was in a drum and bugle Corps, you know, when I was like 13 and 14 years old, my mother always did stuff to keep me off the streets. I didn't get in trouble and I was in the drum and bugle Corps and we marched for everybody for the Chinese we March for Chinese New Year. We marched in Chinatown, you know drum and bugle Corps playing for the Irish. We marched down Fifth Avenue in everything Patrick's Day Parade Capri Italian sweet March during the Feast of San Gennaro. We March for everybody and I never recognized at that time that the only people we didn't March for wear ourselves. It's like, you know, we had no very little knowledge of our own history wasn't taught in the schools or anything like that and it just never occurred to me as a young as a young person that we never we never celebrated on.

07:24 Bealls in that regard the closest I came to that is my grandparents are from four different Caribbean islands. And so the culture that I grew up in was was West Indian when it was Pride out of being you know from the from the Caribbean but as far as being a black person in America, I really did not discover that to its fullest until I got to college and right man, you know, it kind of makes me think about I really didn't think about the same thing about race or anyting growing up growing up here in Santa Monica. May I it out we

07:57 L i i remember living down around 4th Street here and right after the war and I used to play on a tanks and everything. You know, they were all kind of military equipment was here now. I'm right by Salma Hayek Salma Santa Monica High School and everything like you say Asians with my friends and up Bobby Makuta, you know, remember him, you know Hispanic we used to go to the house and eat on the time they come over my house and eat and we just have a great time, you know, but there's no I always think about you every successful person a person become successful has an angel someplace in that lives, you know, and you look at you know for me, it was a person by the name of dr. Al Quinn who was my elementary school teacher. He became like my second father figure out of father at home, but he became up when I wasn't at home. He became my father and he taught me.

08:57 My sixth grade teacher ended up becoming my when I decided to go to college. He was my Santa Monica College counselor to meet you there at that time. It was teaching and you know, I wasn't really thinking about calling she so you going to go to college and he work and got me a scholarship to but to Washington state jail. And so you look at that I'm saying you're talkin about what you went through and everything, you know, and I recall some of the things you could talk about right now is that you know, hey, here's a guy who your kids who grew up in the city and they are the projects in New York and everything goes to how did you get to into a private school boy? That's it. That's a story in itself. Just a bad check a little bit. I growing up in New York. I hated school. I really did. I was so bored and my classes. I didn't see what education was going to do for me. Although it's part of

09:57 City of culture. My mother is always be education education education is the only team from you and I was like, yeah because I was bored in school. I just get a little bit of trouble, you know, I would disrupt the classrooms. I get kicked out of school for disrupting the classroom and would like to even I wasn't really a bad clip kit. Mr. So you got kicked out of school cuz I was bored. I'm talking about third grade third grade, but but I always my sister my older sister read books. She loved books and vinegar up with and my sister would finish a book and she just tossed it at me. So I would read books and books would take me to all of these places that would not in my neighborhood that I knew nothing about and so I really develop the joy for for reading so I always did well on standardized exam. I got to the point where do you know the principal would come into the class reading off the highest score?

10:57 You know in the undercity wide exams and everything any call off the name of you know, usually, you know about three or four Jewish students. And then Nico Dawson what a waste that always do well on standardized exams, but I did nothing in my classes my best friend who's like my brother today really saved my life in that regard one time. I got a little bit of trouble. Bernard McNamee Bernard Mack. I got a little bit of trouble in Project nothing serious, but I ended up down at the at the hot at the at the project police and my mother had to come down there and get me and girl, you know, and that at that time in the projects they had what they called beat cops, you know, what they were saying police officers who knew the neighborhood and do the kids were right there on the corner you talk to them everything they knew who they really bad kids were and who the others were what does carpet pulled me in right? My mother had to come down and get me and my mother was so mad and what not and the policeman said to my mom

11:57 He said this one is going to be the one that gets in trouble. He's here because all the rest of those boys ran and he didn't run cuz I didn't do nothing. He said he's the one that's going to be in trouble. He needs new friends. My mother said I better not catch you with those other boys anymore and she marched out. She had started going to the church across the street and had a friend there who had a sign about my age. And so she took me over to the the next court of the projects and she said these are you no friends and it was this boy that was kind of The Other Woman and then was Wilbur Jones will pajamas next door neighbor was Bernard Mack and it just turned out that Bernard and I became best friends. We just had the same kind of interest and vibing that kind of thing. Even if Bernard was six foot five and a half foot 9, but you know, we just started doing a lot of stuff together. Well at

12:54 At 14 years old Bernard's family decided that he needed an opportunity to get a better education and through the church. He was arranged for him to take the entrance exam and he became the only black student at this boarding school in Peekskill New York in Westchester County north of New York City parents weekend his first year his parents invited me to go up there with him on parents weekend. Now in the neighborhood that he and I were just average basketball player. We couldn't make the local the team the junior high school team or anything like that or the high school team I get up there and he's all ready to start a basketball team and I'm going like wow, I could come up here and be all world. So I go back to my mother said my you know, that's cool that Bernard is that I think I would like to go to that school. You want to go to school she drives me over to the church. They arranged for me to take the entrance exam. I become the second black student at this boarding school when I'm 15 years old. All right. Yeah and

13:54 It's My Life almost flunked out the first semester same bad habits in school not doing my work counselor put me up against the wall when I had a 1.6 my first semester put me up against the wall GPA and if so, do you know what opportunity you're wasting here? And I'm like, yeah, whatever and then it goes, do you know what these other boys here think of you and he's a boy whose family had means and others white guys and he said, you know what they think of you they think you only here cuz you are naturally they don't think you got anything on the cap.

14:23 And I was like well cuz I've never considered that that that they were they were judging everybody who looks like me but how I perform here at the school and you know, sometimes it is the question of what makes the light bulb go off for me that made the light bulb go off. It was just like, you know, I got to prove something I just for me but for everybody looks like me and I knuckled down became a good student. I ended up senior graduating third in my class and getting into an Ivy League College Cornell University. And that's where you became the militants, huh?

15:00 That's the next chapter in okay, but you know you I think we both had some lyrics. Oh, yeah that mean when you talk about being down in the police right on the same street, where on right now what group of us walking down through the different stores wouldn't Promenade then we just 3rd Street and went in there.

15:29 And something stealing ink pens

15:32 Nothing, but everybody got a way.

15:40 And I turn around and I go back in the store and they get me take me home. I mean take me to the police station and I guess the thing that saved me was the police officer got me.

15:57 And took me downstairs to see a prison cell. He said this is where you going to be you keep doing that a it scared the holy hell out of me and I went back home that night. My mother looked at me and my dad looked at me for one of the few times. My dad didn't say a word. He just looked at me and that was it and I just lie and I can say from that point on. Hey the stealing all that kind of stuff went out the window when I can say I just kind of started doing whatever young kids would do playing baseball basketball and all those things in that area, you know and going to school. So that was great. You know at that time. I was just really wanted to pay my mother back also and when I got into that boarding school because she never gave out and she never gave up on me which which gave me an opportunity to have that opportunity to go to the school one of the things because I was so disruptive in school.

16:56 They did not they wanted me to be in the cause of vocational education at that time. They wanted me to take shop class as my mother was not having any of that again. So what she discovered because I love music so much that if she got me in the music class track that was on the academic track and that kept me on the academic check. My mother went to school and gave them holy hell and made sure that they put me in the music that helps keep me out of trouble also until I became mature and aware enough to kind of get my act together until you got Jack together and went to Cornell and then my friend the mill nice person. That's the Dawson became the military.

17:39 Well, do you know if that was doing that whole agents of change agents of change? Well, you know what the boarding school. I was not really a political person my system out of the sister when she was a Firebrand. In fact one weekend, one of the one of the boys in a boarding school he want to see what you know life was like in the projects in white hat so we came home with me one weekend, you know to visit the visit where my where my mother lives and I had threw up and not comes on the door and I go and open up the door and these guys to like guys and and raincoats white raincoat is just like you see on TV without this badge and say, you know, you know FBI, you know, we looking for Diane Dawson and I'm going to like I'm shaking in my boots, you know, and my sister

18:35 My mother cry all know. I ain't what you do. Now then and then looking for my sister my sister. Let me see those badges badges again and she said you could have got those at Woolworths get out of it. Turns out I don't know if you remember the program cointelpro that the FBI and the guy identifying group. Will they identified the Black Panthers as a group that was you know, subversive and everything out and they started the program called cointelpro and under that program. My sister had signed up for a Swahili class at Swahili class at the community college or something like that and her name ended up on this list and so they came looking for my sister dinner was intimidation looking to scare people so that they didn't get involved in stuff and I'll never forget the guy from school with he couldn't wait to get back to Saint Peter's until I see FB. I came to Frank's mother's house. All you should have seen it man.

19:33 I was really really not political until you know, I got the Cornell and you know blacks. I got a letter from the Afro-American Society to Summer before I got on the kappas inviting me to come to a meeting describing the difficulties of black students were having at Cornell and invited me to come to a meeting, you know to better understand what plans they had to get some things changed and they wanted lunch a black studies program and it was a lot of pushback from it. So I get to Cornell went to the meeting and it was like, you know, they were home group was the first year that Cornell head aggressively. I recruited for black students from the inner city black students that they had previous to that small number but it come from Suburban communities that gone to school with white students in that kind of thing, you know not different than me going to this morning school, but they were kids who grew up in the end of City Hall across the country. So we bonded together as freshmen because we double the number of black students at Cornell and in the class that I came in.

20:33 And we were a different kind of what kind of black students that they were not used to it all for you and we bonded together because you know, we call came from the neighborhood but we weren't too tough guys from the neighborhood to do and so we bonded together. We supporting one another and so a meeting with come up and say, you know, we don't say you down I'm down I'm down and we all go together this meeting. So we became this Core group that the upperclassmen began to understand the I always say we were the Infantry, you know, they were the leaders and they made all the plans and everything but they needed a critical mass of students that they knew, you know, what support them and do whatever needs to be done. And that was my freshman year at Cornell. So when cross was burned at the black women's residence hall that have been a resident residence house have been established because then black women being harassed in the dorms when a fire going across was burn their, you know, we all came together an upperclassman said, you know, we have some plans in terms of what we need to do and

21:33 Next morning, you know, we took over the Student Union building that weekend. I was Candice weekend. And now it's supposed to be the focal point of so many activities and we shut that down. So that's kind of how I became politicizing unaware of theft and then also, you know my senior year in high school 1968 was one on Malcolm X have been assassinated in 65 and its 68 when Martin Luther King that was our senior year Martin Luther King was assassinated and just you know, we got back to school and you know how that impacted myself and Bernard, you know ends in such a deep way, you know Dwight since we're afraid to even talk to us, they knew how angry we were and that kind of like opened up my eyes to political awareness fight when the by the time I got the Cornell and I need to change something to be a part of that chain was interested in you. Cuz I know some of the story but I think for the most

22:31 For me the best part of that story is like the this Photograph that you have that ended up winning the Pulitzer Prize of all these black not all of them, but the black students from Cornell with their Bandoleros across and with the rifles in their arms and everything and always don't like you telling that story about that. Well this guy now as a teacher this guy now and so this here is just talked about that. Yeah, you know after occupying the building and changing it up and then rejecting their there was there was some hotel rooms in the big Student Union building in an eject in the parents and everything, you know, we were attacked by a white fraternity who got into the building with sticks and clubs and it was big battle and they were rejected and then the leadership decided that we needed some weapons to protect ourselves because we got word that police forces.

23:31 You know where I'm at Fingerhut sell guns were brought into the building and that that took everything to a whole nother level. And so that picture was once we were negotiated with the administration and they they would do anything just to get us out that building and they agreed to you know, black studies program which it already been in development, but they hadn't really made a real commitment. And so that I kind of picture of Us coming out that building brandishing gun is on an Ivy League college campus was you know Time Time Magazine front cover in Newsweek or you know, all the periodicals across the country, you know, these black students brandishing arms on an Ivy League campus and is it says the Provost at that time says when we interviewed him for the documentary, he said if not for that photograph, we wouldn't even be talking about this today. But it again the whole power of a picture issues running over in terms of telling more than a thousand words was demonstrated by that when it won the Pulitzer Prize for

24:31 Photojournalism in 1970 and then you graduate come out here become become a big-time producer to call the big time. But yeah, I was I was fortunate that dream that we all have manual and see what changes we can make for Ryan Ryan getting people in the industry. And the thing for as far as nepotism is concerned if you're African American person at that time, you know, who's going to get you in there? None of you are alright the end, but I was fortunately my wife at the time and I you know, we were living in Ithaca. I got other grad school Syracuse. I went back to Cornell and work the radio station that they owned but I could kind of see what my life would be after 2 years so I can see what my life would be if I stayed in Ithaca, right, you know and that I just had to get out of there been a school in Syracuse I transition from the work I was doing in radio at Cornell to television and I really got

25:31 Turn on the television and the only production and television it was going on in New York City at that time with news and I wanted to be an entertainment programming and the only way to do that was to move to California for me and my wife had a sister who worked at CVS in Los Angeles lower level position, but she was you know, she was inside so I went out there around Thanksgiving and never forget. It was 89 degrees at Thanksgiving. I'm coming from Ithaca New York. Where is like 15u00b0 Snow White grout and you know stayed with her and her husband for two weeks and I really felt that I want some interviews didn't get in any offers or anything but I really felt if I move to California that I could get a job. So I went back to my wife. She like great let's get out of here and we drove across the country and move to Los Angeles, California and again because when I went to HR HR would told me I call it a catch-22. They said you're overqualified for an entry-level job, you know, and but we can't we can

26:30 Give you a job at a higher level cuz we promote from within by said so you mean I can't I can't work at CVS but my sister-in-law was able to get me in through the backdoor. I call it to my first job that was called by my title was Vault attendant in the basement, right CVS. My job was checking in, you know, the TV series that came in and found him and carry him down to tell us and but it was also told that the Apprentice step in the film editors Union and because of unions, you know, based on time, you can move up and the first time I got a chance to move up the system film editor. They denied it to me at that job is too difficult to do. You know what I said Union and seniority wise is like my time and so I had to I found a union grievance when he didn't want to give me the job and hit they were forced to give me the job. So but the great thing with that was that I was working with the writer producers and advertising and promotion, you know doing the assistant film editing work.

27:30 Cuz I've written all these commercials in college. I start writing commercials when I created a in-house position that's interested just emailed you realizing that now in here in the connection now between Raheem and you say marry your son my son is doing exactly what you do. Is it a higher level now and everything but it all started right there started started right there. So I am I thought it right now this much they hired they had five positions when they when they tied the fourth one. I camped outside the vice president's door. And I said, that's my job. I turned in all this material. I'll show you I can I showed you I can write I used to write radio commercials. I mean, this is my job and he looked at me and he was just like, okay, I'll let you have this job. But if you fail, you can't go back to your old position. You'll just be out the door. I said, let's do it still and that's how I broke into from the editors film editors Union Into The Writers Guild which was a whole another level and open up a whole lot of other doors to me and and then I

28:30 Was accepted into CBS is executive internship program out of a lot of people who had applied and was like going back to grad school cuz I spent a year both in LA and they sent me back to New York for three months so that I learned every area of the company so they send me back to New York for 3 months on expense account living in a hotel encouraged to go see as many theater Productions that I can which they get I got House Seats to all of this stuff and at that time there was that campaign. I love New York where you grew up in the projects. You don't really understand that that whole I love New York thing. I go back to New York for 3 months or inexpensive calendar for New York, New York everybody dreams about now, you know, but it put me at an advantage because I had to go through all every area of CVS. And because I

29:30 It in the basement. I knew everything about that company so about a so after that year than then I was appointed associate program executive at CVS. And I was the only black person who was in television programming at CVS. And who is that at that level and from there? I went on to Universal which is when we met met right and before that time, you know, it's always interesting, you know talking about one of the first, you know, you look back and I remember like I was one of the first black to get the job at ABC and movies for television, you know, and yeah I recall back in the day when I graduated from college when I graduated from college and they asked me if my family asked me what was my major would you learn I say I made it in radio and television they said oh good. You can fix my TV now.

30:30 What do you think back like that time? The only people I could think about was like me and myself you Peter Peter Andrews and over at the Rendezvous name right now, but the time.

30:58 Stanford Robinson Stan Robbins, he was the senior of us cuz he had been around a long time for the The Sentinel newspaper things like that, but he was able to give us a lot of advice doing those periods of time and I ended up being produced in Partners. Also, we had a development deal at at the CVS CVS in based on the phone what the people wanted us to get together and everything and find out that we came from the same University speak it all started with the idea that someone else is right and you asked us to come in and be part of the producing team on it right by that time. I was at University director comedy development exactly and we had we had

31:58 Just an idea from someone or 444 Bill Cosby at that at that time, but then he got The Cosby Show. And so it was just sitting there and then John and his producing partner at the time came in and got on me because I hadn't bought SB projects from them that I could not tell him. There's nothing I could sell but then these I told me about this idea and they change the idea made it say love. I set up an older person being mayor of the first black mayor of this city. It was a young person. I am the ultimately became a show that we got on that was produced on ABC called. He's the mayor vagina and I started working together on that on that Neil and like we were Partners been Partners ever since that business partners ever since then developing projects and things and but then you don't hey is this industry goes something there.

32:50 Valleys Peaks and valleys and in the valley, you know, we all have to find something else something else to do it. Exactly and that's when you got into education first saw, you know, I got hired come to that Bill Cosby is starting to program at USC to bring more African American Writers in the television and I've been doing lecturing for The Writers Guild and I was hired to teach on television script writing and ended up doing that as a visiting lecturer at USC for 6 years and that transition in education. My mother always says one door closes another door opens because most people told me I was blacklisted out of the television industry because I was trying to create opportunities for all the African-Americans and people of color and I was ahead of my time in that regard as as you were in terms of things. We were trying to sell as far as the images of black people that weren't Minstrel shows that they were people that we knew, you know, where educated people and what not but good material, but we were kind of

33:50 My time at that time, I just want to say something personally. I mean John Forbes is the nicest person who is the nicest person on the planet. I mean it really is and we've had so much fun, you know working together knowing each other's families watching our kids grow up together and whatnot. So it was making that trip back to New York to Syracuse every 3 every three years three years is a black and Latino conference conference alumni conference is Syracuse and every year as it gets and we get older and fold a fitted sheet on a Chinaman. Is that third year man? Come on, man. I'm not going back to come on if if I go back by myself and Frank, where is John Forbes said come on, man, and I finally convinced that John is coming up in 2021 it right. I know you know, but is that we would is always

34:50 Takes place the same time the Congressional Black Caucus takes place ride. And what we would end up doing is like I say driving from New York City to Syracuse to watch him go to Washington DC on the same way about you and yo

35:17 That we've had a very close relationship. We have been good friends for years and no family knows each other and everything and I love your kids. I mean, they're just great in your daughter. Now. She is where Utah Denver Denver, Colorado and Beijing intense now. Yeah, he's a he's a manager in their home entertainment Division. I got two grandchildren of how many I got four grandkids.

35:59 Two daughters and four grandkids It's a Wonderful It's a Wonderful Journey ride and wonderful journey, and you know from where we first started what we've been able to accomplish and what we continue to do and still give them back. They'll give him back. That's it. That's right, cuz I'll just paved the way for all right, that's the whole thing that the younger people don't realize that. Hey.

36:26 They are have to stand on the shoulders of someone else just like we did, you know.