[Willie Green]

Weren't the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954 broadcast in color?

I don't know.
I was only two-years-old then,
and all I've ever seen has been the B&W ancient-history newsclips.

I was absolutely transfixed by those color photos.

Interestingly, I DO have vague memories of color TV before I was 4 years old.
(We moved to a different home that summer, which is how I can be certain of my age.)
Anyway, the neighbor who lived across the street from us must've worked for RCA.
Everybody in the whole neighborhood was crammed into his living room with all the other lights out to watch the color TV.
I can't actually remember what show was on, just this dazzling pretty display of color that I had never seen before. Fifteen years later, I probably would've described the experience as "psychedelic".

[nathanbedford]

Them hearin's were in black and white.

I can well remember coming home from school as a kid and finding my mother transfixed by these proceedings.

A few years later (not very many really, less than ten) in university, I was patiently instructed about how my parents' nativist passions had endangered the world (the Republic being to my professors of lesser concern) by their mindless anti-communism. Nevertheless, I contrived to remain a conservative without a north star until Barry Goldwater, and I might add, at damage to my academic standing although brooding about how my dear mother had been seduced by the brute from Minn.

The reality is that my mother was in the majority, like those who instinctively supported Clarence Thomas until they were better instructed by the media and dutifully changed their druthers for the pollsters.

And the reality is that my dear mom had it mostly right.