The TV series Sesame Street broke new ground in 1969 as the first children's television show backed by educational research. It was also a hit with children, and most adults, although there were a few exceptions. Sesame Street had only been on the air a few months when it ran up against the newly formed Mississippi Authority for Educational Television. The five-member board met in January of 1970 to consider the influence of Sesame Street, which featured an integrated cast of both black and white adults and a diverse group of children.
This appeared to be too much for the Authority, which discussed how lawmakers with control over ETV’s budget—which had just been set at $5,367,441—might find the mixed-race assembly offensive. The panel's participants were all white.
The board pushed the discussion aside until April 17, 1970, when they took an informal poll and decided, by a margin of three votes against two, to prohibit ETV from airing Sesame Street—a show that came free of charge to all public television stations. (The decision affected mainly viewers in and around Jackson, as the station had not yet expanded across the state and was not expected to do so until the fall of 1970.)
As you might guess, when the decision became national news, it reflected more on Mississippi than it did on Sesame Street. Read what happened at Mental Floss.