"Mississippi: Integration Now! (For Everybody Else!)" - for KQED

 

Robert Owen Bastian

 

c. 1968  

charcoal pencil editorial cartoon 

17 3/4 x 22 1/2" image size 

signed in image, lower right 

1 of 1 unique 

subtitle along lower center edge of image reads: "A good defense... is the best offense?" 

 

ivory craft paper 

 

 

25373 

$300.00 

In 1968, San Francisco-based cartoonist Robert Bastian moved from the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle to PBS's latest Bay Area news program, KQED-TV. There, he was a part of the Newsroom program, created in response to a nine-week long strike at the Chronicle. KQED paid journalists and artists $100 per week to report for what was first called Newspaper of the Air. When the strike endded it was rebranded as Newsroom and continued to cover breaking stories on television for several years.

In an unique move, Bastian was given a spot on the program each night to discuss current events while drawing editorial cartoons on the subject at hand. It soon became one of the most popular news spots on KQED, and earned Bastian a Peabody Award.

It's believed this drawing is one of those from the show, with "KQED" written below his signature. In it, he adresses the state of Mississippi's on-going, racist refusual to to integrate their public schools. Bastian used his signature tongue-in-cheek humor to hone in on the absurdity of their stance.

After fourteen at the Chronicle, Robert Bastian had become disillusioned, citing the paper's decline in hard hitting, critical journalism. He gladly took the opportunity to move to KQED and to try something new. However, it was a short-lived effort. Despite his popularity, in September of 1970, Bastian died by suicide on Cronkhite Beach, just across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County. A retrospective of his work was held the following year at the Landsmarks Society Gallery in Tiburon, Marin County. His work is held in the Cartoon Art Museum of San Francisco and in university collections throughout the U.S.