“The fact is, while she apologized to the staff, she owes a bigger apology to folks of color around the country because this is our history," Al Roker said on Today hours before Kelly's on-air apology. After Savannah Guthrie called it an "uncomfortable" situation, fellow Today colleague Craig Melvin called it "silly" and "disingenuous" to dismiss the controversy as a result of political correctness. "The fact is a lot of folks don’t realize that Jim Crow, short hand for the racist laws that existed in this country for much of the last century, especially in the deep south, the term Jim Crow came from a minstrel show in the 1830s," Melvin said. "It was an opportunity for us to learn more about blackface, but I think a lot of people knew about blackface before yesterday.” ALSO: Don Lemon delivered a stern rebuke of Kelly on CNN.
TOPICS: Megyn Kelly, NBC, Megyn Kelly Today, Today Show, Al Roker, Craig Melvin, Don Lemon, Savannah Guthrie, African Americans and TV, NBC News