A Defining Moment

On March 11, my brother, Brandon Stoddard, will be inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Science Hall of Fame. My brother, as President of ABC Productions, and later, as President of ABC Motion Pictures, created the mini-series, and brought us memorable television movies, such as Rich Man, Poor Man, The Thorn Birds, Winds of War, The Day After, and Love Among The Ruins, starring Katherine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier.

In 1977, however, the nation came to a standstill as an unprecedented eighty million people watched five evenings of the ABC television film Roots: The Saga Of An American Family, based on the book by Alex Haley. That film was my brother’s crowning television achievement.

I flew to California to watch the first three nights of the show with him. I did have some idea what I was in for, but none of our phone conversations during the creation of the film had prepared me for the impact of that opening segment. Tears ran down my face, both because of the story and my awe and pride in Brandon’s courage to make this film.

It wasn’t easy. Brandon had put his career on the line to make Roots happen.

The problem was sponsorship. Brandon had hoped that just a few major corporations would sponsor Roots, thereby reducing the number of commercial interruptions. It was not to be. The corporate giants of America didn’t believe anyone would watch five days of a film about race: a film that would provoke conversation, a film that might create a surge in the social change in our country that was already in process.

The president of ABC TV, Fred Pierce, and the CEO, Leonard Goldenson, informed Brandon that they would have to terminate the project. It was too controversial; it could not get the financial support necessary for five evenings of program time.

This was the moment and my brother nailed it. He responded by telling them that if they scuttled Roots, he would leave ABC. He would find sponsors, he told them, rooting out every small American company willing to fund this film.

Pierce and Goldenson agreed.

As they say, the rest is history.

A defining moment: we all have them. Eighty million people may not be affected, but we have these moments nonetheless. Think of the times in your life when you have believed that something was right-- something you have taken part in creating or in an idea larger than yourself--so much that, risking the censure of friends or a boss, or a board-- you have stood up and said, “This we must do.”

 Large or small, our lives and the world itself are shaped by such moments.