Watch online through the UCLA Library Digital Collections platform: digital.library.ucla.edu/tomreed
For Members Only was created, hosted and independently produced by former local disc jockey, Los Angeles Sentinel columnist and L.A. jazz and blues historian Tom Reed. Airing in Los Angeles on KSCI UHF Channel 18 from 1980 into the 2000s, For Members Only offered viewers Black perspectives on topics ranging from local social issues to African American history to celebrity interviews. Guests on the program included luminaries such as boxer and humanitarian Muhammad Ali and author Alex Haley, often alongside noted politicians such as Congresswoman Diane Watson or community activists such as Michael Zinzun. Additional examples of guests appearing on the program include Emmy-winning actress Alfre Woodard and Grammy Hall of Fame Award inductee Nina Simone.
Many episodes of For Members Only trace African American contributions to popular music, with numerous segments highlighting topics covered in Reed's self-published book, The Black Music History of Los Angeles — Its Roots. At least four times a year, the magazine format of the series would yield to specially themed documentary-type episodes with titles such as “African American Women of Courage,” “Malcolm X: He Is Still Among Us,” “Smoking: A Cause of Death in the Black & African American Community” and “Mesoamerican and African American Contributions in and Near Los Angeles to 1950.”
As a personal enterprise with a small part-time staff, Tom Reed procured funding and produced the low-budget For Members Only program as a labor of love. Airing in sporadic paid time slots on KSCI via paid advertising sold by Reed, the series included self-produced commercials for local Black businesses and national and local ad spots from corporate sponsorships. The commercials serve as a valuable record of African American businesses and enterprises in Los Angeles, with the corporate sponsor spots illuminating how national products were marketed to Black audiences during the 1980s and '90s.
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