contract. Although she did not jump to sign the contract when it arrived, on Easter Sunday night, Mahalia felt that she had received a sign from god and signed the contract immediately. (5) A friend of Mahalia?s, Stern Terkel, took on a position working at the CBS radio show in 1954, when Mahalia learned that the show needed a staff writer. CBS did not support the idea of having Terkel work for them but they agreed to Mahalia?s requests as long as they both understood that his name would not appear in the program credits or advertising. For twenty weeks, the Mahalia Jackson Show ran on television for a half-hour each episode. Beginning in September 1954, the show did not last very long. Mahalia?s show featured her singing traditional gospels and spirituals with a few miscellaneous songs but the show was missing a major component. (2) The show was in need of a sponsor and began to go out of business. The show went from thirty minutes airtime to ten minutes and eventually ended in February 1955. This was not the end of Mahalia's television appearances however. The TV station, WBBM-TV of Chicago asked Mahalia to be a guest on their program, ?In Town Tonight?. This pleased her very much because until that point, neither she nor any other black entertainers had been sought after by networks. She once again asked that her friend Terkel be employed as writer of the TV show when she appeared. They agreed to her requests but once again declared that Te...
