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In just 9 days Byron Allen, head of Entertainment Studios,  will be headed to supreme court to argue a case against the cable giant Comcast. This is a result of lawsuits that he brought against Comcast as well as others like Charter, arguing that he was being prevented from having his networks carried on their systems. He’s suing them under the guise of a civil rights act from the 1800s.

Allen decided to bring the lawsuit forward because in his opinion,”they’re not good corporate citizens,” because every year they spend $70 Billion licensing cable networks and Black folks “get practically zero.” He noticed that he wasn’t alone in feeling this way, but no one was willing to speak out. So, he did it.

He decided to use the civil rights act of 1866 section 1981, which was put on the books to protect freed slaves and was the “very first civil rights act.” It was put there to ensure that we got “economic inclusion.”

 

Roland Martin: The First Civil Rights Act  was originally published on blackamericaweb.com