MTV is going “colour blind” for a national conversation on race.
The youth-orientated TV network is broadcasting its programming in black and white on Martin Luther King Jr Day, a first in the channel’s 34-year history.
The programming move is meant to promote #TheTalk initiative, encouraging viewers to discuss race with their friends and family.
“The device of turning us black and white is going to be really – visually – a jolt to say: ‘You know what? There are differences and if we are going to ever get to a freer, more equal society, the best thing we can begin to do is talk about them,’” MTV’s president Stephen Friedman said.
The retro-look programmes will be shown for 12 hours on Monday and will include personal reflections on race from entertainers and public officials including Kendrick Lamar, Big Sean, Jordin Sparks, Pete Wentz, the politicians Rand Paul, John Lewis, Cory Booker, plus the Selma director Ava DuVernay and the actor David Oyelowo.
The Oscar-nominated film Selma chronicles the 1965 marches for voting rights that King led through Alabama. Lewis, one of the student leaders working with King, suffered a skull fracture when Alabama state troopers, deputy sheriffs and possemen wielding bullwhips, clubs and tear gas advanced on the marchers on the outskirts of Selma.
In addition to entertaining its audience, MTV has traditionally engaged viewers in social issues, Friedman said.
“We thought what better day than MLK Day to really use, not only the history and the power of what Dr King said with the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, but hear it from artists, political leaders and the audience to really spark a national conversation,” Friedman said.
The latest MTV initiative is a part of its Look Different anti-bias campaign that was launched in April.
The campaign created commercials with civil rights groups including the NAACP in the aftermath of the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last summer.
An MTV study found that 91 per cent of millennials believe in equality and believe everyone should be treated equally. About 61 per cent of teenagers and young adults say they have been the target of bias.