Actually, it was Ethel Waters who was the first black woman to star in her own TV series. The series was Beulah. The show was on during the 1950's. Miss Waters played a maid. No surprise there as roles were very limited to blacks back in the 1950's. A black person having his or her own TV show was shocking back then. What set Julia apart was that the title character was a widow whose husband was killed in Vietnam and was college educated. One of the reasons Julia was cancelled was that Diahann Carroll was receiving threats on her life. She didn't return to a television series until the late 1980's/early 1990's when she started appearing on the prime time soap Dynast.