On July 19, 1957, New York-based American Black teen singer
Frankie Lymon was dancing with a white girl, causing the outrage with TV stations in the
Southern states. In those Southern states, racial segregation was "still in effect" since the civil rights movement was at its earliest stages. A few weeks after the incident, the show was immediately cancelled after four episodes. Therefore, the ABC executives "buckled under the pressure." Following the incident regarding interracial dance between Frankie Lymon and a white girl, Freed was often featured in magazines and newspapers which he wore bright scarlet tuxedos or outsized window-plaid sport coats punctuated with a wispy silk bow tie favored by Black or white hillbilly artists. Therefore, Freed was fired from ABC. According to an
American Bandstand producer to
New York Post, the interracial dance between Frankie Lymon and a white girl "contributed to ''American Bandstand's
segregation." It is also revealed that The Milt Grant Show'' faced similar issues two months prior to the following incident. Regardless of the controversies among Southern Americans who were working in TV stations, Freed was inducted along with
Elvis Presley,
Little Richard,
Chuck Berry, and
Jerry Lee Lewis into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame "in its very first class" in 1986 because he promoted the interracial dance. It appears that the clip of the final episode does not exist, but the audio files remain online. ==References==