The Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, reveals how journalist and their stories changed the nation’s ideas about the civil rights movement. Written by Gene Roberts, a journalism professor, and Hank Klibanoff, editor of the Atlanta Journal, The Race Beat uses primary resources such as interviews, correspondence between journalist, and articles to defined their views about the importance of this journalist. In a particular part of the book, the authors describe the hatred and resistance the white reporters face while covering the story at Selma.
Unlike other sources on the topic of television and the Civil Rights movement The Race Beat focuses on the journalists themselves
The cry has also been associated with various effects, and this is because the lynch law was being implemented at any time wherever the concerns was linked to the Afro-Americans. The fourth chapter of the book is “the malicious and untruthful white press.” This is a chapter of the book that covers how the white press was spreading lies about the Afro-Americans at the time.
In response to “Making kids read The Help is not the way to teach them about the civil rights struggle”, writer Jessica Roake informs the audience that she is giving facts about how kids shouldn’t read these books because it’s written by white authors in her article “Not Helpful.” Using several rhetorical strategies, Roake effectively builds her argument. One important rhetorical strategy Roake uses is Logos. She builds her argument by using facts about the Jim Crow laws. She establishes “Jim Crow was a time of systematic oppression, when an entire population was terrorized because of the color of their skin” (Roake, 2).
Eyes off the Prize by Carol Anderson is a historical narrative that examines the struggle of various African American organizations to raise the issue of human rights before the United Nations in the aftermath of World War II. Throughout 1944-1955, several organizations such as the NAACP, National Negro Congress (NNC), and Civil Rights Congress played important roles in the protection of U.S. human rights policies. She focuses on the NAACP and their mission to end segregation and inequality in America but with the rise of anti-communism and start of the Cold War powerful Southerners were able to dismiss this offensive, which then began the Civil Rights Movement. Anderson’s mission is not to examine the struggle for civil rights, but instead the true “prize” that is human rights in order to answer why inequality was still prominent post Civil Rights Movement.
Headlines flash by the screen panning images of Negros for sale cuffed in chains; Negros who were forced to come to a country killed for being in the country; Negros who were whipped and sold off as property. Then, the images change drastically from slavery in the field to slavery inside a factory. Finally Got the News is a documentary that highlights the hidden legacy of the radical left of the 1970s; a time period when social movements challenged racism, imperialism and capitalism itself (Giroux). The title of the documentary comes from a slogan used by the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, “Finally got the news, how your dues being used,” referring to the league’s outward hostility toward the United Auto Workers union.
While the press was divided over the murder of Isaiah Nixon, the responsibility of the black and white press during the 1940s was completely segregated. The black press had evolved out of the necessity to supplement the white press in order to fully voice the concerns of the black community. In this evolution the black press became protestors and in the words of Gunnar Myrdal, a ‘fighting press’ . The mission of the black press was to eliminate the press stereotype of the ‘black criminal’ and to demonstrate the humanity within the black community. Stories such as the Nixon’s shined, the Nixon’s became beacons of hope for the black community.
“Long, hot summers” of rioting arose and many supporters of the African American movement were assassinated. However, these movements that mused stay ingrained in America’s history and pave way for an issue that continues to be the center of
Another reporter who was reporting the event for the New York Times was Benjamin Fine. He was a white man who famously sat down next to Elizabeth Eckford, who was one of the nine, and told her not tell let them see her cry. Roberts and Klibanoff presented a case where the press shows how whites and blacks can interact in a civil humane manner. The Race Beat not only shows an insight on how the press evolves to promote the awareness of the Civil Rights movement, but also how the Civil Rights movement learned to use the press to their
This newspaper got the protestors noticed and opened new doors. Nowadays, instead of individuals publishing an article in the newspaper the freedom to post videos on YouTube may be used to express an opinion. There are a like button and a dislike button that expresses the way an audience feels about your topic. Which in this case would represent the two factions emerging, the abolitionists and the slave owners. Slave owners believed that owning black women and men was beneficial and often a steady income.
That September the Interstate Commerce Commission delivered its order to end segregation on buses and in railway stations, and the civil rights movement had an enormous triumph. Now so too does this genre of documentary film. It is easy to imagine “Freedom Riders,” attaining the status of “Eyes on the Prize,” the multipart film on the history of the civil rights movement that has been an essential component of American history classes for years. “Freedom Riders” should have an equally long life. AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
The first is titled “Color Blind TV, 1948-1969.” The second is titled “Coloring the Dream, 1969-1988.” Together, using these two parts, Riggs points out many stimulating critiques though the use of film clips and interviews. By doing so, he gives us an in-depth analysis of, how through prime time programming, we were fooled to not understand the actual racial problems happening in society and to just look over them instead. The story of the Civil Rights Movement was intertwined in the documentary through clips from various shows.
The media is illuminating racial relations in the South and they are showing how people in the North are being treated. When people in the North sees how the segregationists are treating African Americans in the South, they support the side of integration. In “A Mighty Long Way”, Carlotta said that, “Finally one of them delivered a crushing blow to the back of Wilson”s head with an heavy object believed to be a brick” (pg.85 Lanier). People are seeing how white racists are attacking African-Americans.
In Mark Bauerlein’s, Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906, the political and social events leading to the riot are analyzed. The center of events took place around and inside Atlanta in the early 1900’s. The riot broke out on the evening of September 22, 1906. Prior to the riot in 1906, elections were being held for a new Georgia governor. Bauerlein organizes his book in chronological order to effectively recount the events that led to the riot.
An additional issue relevant to the movie is yellow journalism. This was the publisher’s way of bringing public attention to important matters
• Grigsby Bates is a Los Angeles based correspondent for National Public Radio news and has authored published books. She focuses on cultural and international issues, as well as reporting of general news. NPR.org is a neutral news source that provides reliable and unbiased information. • This article and website will be useful in adding views of the Rodney King riots in a form that is looking back on the event. Most of my sources are published during the 1990s, so I think this will be beneficial in adding a source that looks at the event from a different point of view instead of writing about it shortly after it occurred.
“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” by Gill Scott-Heron was a witty spoken word for not only the black community but for the white community as well. This spoken word emphasized some of the problems in “White America” without actually saying anything about it. Scott-Heron used metaphorical speech to make African-Americans think and really understand the current state of the country. This tool of metaphors can be very useful when trying to catch the attention of such a broad audience. The message of the spoken word was for but not limited to African-Americans, which overall was telling them to open their eyes.