The American Civil Rights Movement: The Media


Figure 1.--Here in "To Kill a Mockingbird" Jem, Scout, and Dill watch the trial of a Black man facing 'Southern justice" during the 1930s. Scout is a little young to understand just what is transpiring, but Jems understands all to well.

The media played a major role in the success of the Civil Rights movement. The media brought the inequalities and denials of basic civil rights in the South to the attention of the entire nation. America in the 1950s was still a fundamentally racist nation, but the NAZI horrors in Europe had made racism except in the South an untenable moral position. Even those with racist views would increasingly deny such views in polite society and increasingly rejected government policies restricting Black rights. Given this shift in White attitudes, media coverage of the exposing the brutalities of Southern racism and supression of legitimate Black expirations turned the conscious of a nation. While many if not most White Americans still harbored racist views, few outside the South favored denying Blacks the right to vote and other civil liberties. Most were horrified with the beatings, murders, and other brutalities exposed by the media. Many northern whites did not understand what was happening in the South. Here the new medium of televesion delivered powerful images to the nsation's living room. Print media was important, but it was television coverage that was central to the Civil Rights movement. Hollywood also played a role in changing attitudes.

Black Images

Images of Black people throught out American history have been either absent or negative. The most famous early image of America was the Boston Masacre (1775). One of the individuals killed was Ciprus Atickus--a Black man. In the early images distributed bt the Patriots, he was shown as a White. Blacks were also excised from other parts in American history. When I was teaching school in South Carolina during the 1970s, my students didn't believe when I told them that Blacks played an important role in winning the Civil War and in calvary troops during the Indian Wars. When Blacks were depicted it was almost routinely sterotypical depictions as lazy, ignorant, and superstious. The Civil Rights movement was the first time that the American media put Blacks on the front page in positive depictions.

Public Awareness

It is difficult to assess just how aware the public in the North was of segregation in the South. Well informed people of course were, but many Americans in the North were not well informed or had traveled in the South, except for perhaps summer vacations to Florida which became very popular after World WarII, especially by the 1950s. And opinions in the North varied. Many Northerners had racist views of varying intensity. Many were unconcerned or disinterested. But as the national media began to cover the Civil Rights movement, fewer Americans could say that they were not aware of the segregation system in the South.

The News Media

The media played a major role in the success of the Civil Rights movement. The media brought the inequalities and denials of basic civil rights in the South to the attention of the entire nation. America in the 1950s was still a fundamentally racist nation, but the NAZI horrors in Europe had made racism except in the South an untenable moral position. Even those with racist views would increasingly deny such views in polite society and increasingly rejected government policies restricting Black rights. Given this shift in White attitudes, media coverage of the exposing the brutalities of Southern racism and supression of legitimate Black expirations turned the conscious of a nation. While many if not most White Americans still harbored racist views, few outside the South favored denying Blacks the right to vote and other civil liberties. Most were horrified with the beatings, murders, and other brutalities exposed by the media. Many northern whites did not understand what was happening in the South. Here the new medium of televesion delivered powerful images to the nsation's living room. Print media was important, but it was television coverage that was central to the Civil Rights movement. Hollywood also played a role in changing attitudes. Civil Rights leaders were very aware of the impotance of the media. Dr. King wrote about the media coverage of the important effort he led in Birmingham, "The brutality with which officials would have quelled the black individual became impotent when it could not be pursued with stealth and remain unobserved. It was caught—as a fugitive from a penitentiary is often caught—in gigantic circling spotlights. It was imprisoned in a luminous glare revealing the naked truth to the whole world." The Klan and other viloent racists also knew about the importance of the media. Reporters were often targeys for assaults.

Hollywood

Hollywood after World War II played a very positive tole in the Civil Rights movement. This was not always the case. One of the early American film classics was "Birth of a Nation" (19??). It was crudely racist and idealized the violence of the Klu Klux Klan. Through the 1930s while there were some hints at racial justice, Blacks were commonnly depicted in the accepted racial sterotypes of the day. This was not the case for Jews, despite the fact that anti-Semitism until World War II was widespread. This changed after the War. The Holocaust was such a clear indication of what racism can lead to that American public opinio was affected. Films like the Gentleman's Agreement (1947), "Boy with Green Hair" (1948), and "South Pacific" (19??) began to aggressively address the question of prejudice and anti-Semitism, but did not cross the color bar by overtly making the connection with Blacks. One of the first films to deal squarely with the race issue was "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962). It was followed by "Guess who is Coming to Dinner" (1967). Television was even slower to address the issue. TV news did deal honestly with the news. Reporters at considerable personal risk coverec the viloence directed at Blacks attepting use public accomodations or vote. Very few Blacks appeared on television until the late 1960s.

Exposing the Violence

What the Civil Rights movement and national media accomplished was to recast the debate over Civil Rights. Outrights racists were unswayed, but many Americasns were what might be called 'genteel' racists. Thus keeping blacks out of their neigborhood or workplace was widely acceptable. Denying blacls the right to vote was a very different matter. From the very beginning of the creation of the segregation system, extra legal violence undepinned the system. And this violence directed at school children, peaceful protestors, and people trying to register to vote was not acceptable rto the broad swath of the American public. And the media exposed this vicious violence in all its ugly forms for the first time. I can recall as a young school boy the images on the nightly news. I was unaware of just what segregation meant, but I can vidly recoiling from the vilonce depoicted by the new media and understanding vicedrally tat this was not right.

Media Retrospections

Some Southern newspapers have since reaprised their coverage of the Civil Rights Movement. The Lexington Herald-Leader (Kentucky) appologize to its readers by failing to cover the Civil Rights Movement. ["Front page news"] The appology was accompanied by photographic images of the time which the paper had not published. The paper occassionaly covered local Civil rights stories placing them on bsck pages, almost always with out photographs. Some rporterstried to sunbit stories, but the efditor rejected them. The paper did have a back page feature caleed "Colored Notes" where stories related to Blacks and Civil Rights might be briefly mentioned.

Sources

King, Dr. Martin Luther. Jr. Why We Can't Wait.

Lewis, Anthony. Portrait of a Decade; The Second American Revolution.

Roberts, Gene and Hank Klibanoff. The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation.

"Front page news, back page coverage," Lexington Herald-Leader, July 4, 2004.







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Created: October 9, 2003
Last updated: 3:01 PM 4/27/2011