In May, 1961, Alabama Public Television celebrated its 6th birthday as the nation’s first educational television network. Across the country, public television signals were beginning to blink on in those still-early days of TV, but the pace wasn’t fast enough for Newton Minow.

Minnow was then the newly appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission — a position he took seriously as the “keeper” of the nation’s broadcast airwaves. Those airwaves, he believed, were not up to the job they were tasked with fulfilling, that of keeping America’s viewers not just entertained but also informed and engaged in their world.