I grew up two city blocks from the studio that hosted American Bandstand. The studio was located at 46th and Market and I lived at 47th and Haverford. The ugly truth of why no Black kids were seen on the show is that they were denied admittance.

During the early days (pre Dick Clark) .Black kids were turned back at the entrance without any explanation. This soon became a potential explosive situation, so the studio and Dick Clark created an admission system that required passes that were distributed prior to the day of the show.

This system permitted the show to legally turn away anyone without the pass while at the same time maintain the lily white studio audience since the passes were only distributed at the all white West Catholic High School For Boys and the all white West Catholic High School For Girls.

For those of you that question or challenge this please try and recall a scene from the shows that were produced in Philadelphia where the girls were not wearing Catholic school uniform dresses and the boys were not wearing the white shirt and tie Catholic school boys uniform.

This is but one of the many bitter memories that I and many of the people that I grew up with have about American Bandstand and Dick Clark.