Desegregation of the military

The image above is of the African American newspaper in Chicago called the Chicago Defender.  On July 26, 1948 the paper had run the headline declaring that President Harry Truman had made an executive order that would eliminate segregation in the military.  The order stated the following: "One instituted fair employment practices in the civilian agencies of the federal government." It also stated that "the other provided for "equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion,or national origin."

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Brown vs. Board of Education

The newspaper article above is from the Russell Daily News, a newspaper produced in Russell, Kansas. On the day that the Supreme Court released the decision to end segregation in public schools, the media went on a frenzy reporting the details of the court case. The Russell Daily News published two front page stories about the decision. This particular edition of the newspaper carried the report from D.C. in addition to the ruling.

This is another picture from the same time period, and it displays a mother explaining the decision of the court case to her young daughter.

Emmett Till murder case in 1955

"The Emmett Till murder case in 1955 marked the turning point in the coverage of blacks by the white American press. Till, a black teenager from Chicago, was murdered in 1955 while visiting relatives in Mississippi.

“When Emmett whistled at a white woman storeowner after he purchased candy, the woman's husband and his brother-in-law took Emmett from his relatives' home in the dead of night, drove him away, beat him, gouged out an eye, shot him, tied a cotton gin fan around his neck, and threw him in the Tallahatchie, river.”

The Till murder was covered extensively in the press, since the two white men charged with killing him were acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury on murder charges and later that year were found innocent by a 20-man all-white grand jury on kidnapping charges. At first, most Southern papers denounced Till's murder, but as the Northern white and black presses began investigating the case, anti-black backlash erupted in Southern publications. Editorials appearing in "Life" magazine and the "New York Times" were extremely wounding to Southern pride, and the Southern press retaliated. This media "civil war" continued for about a year after the Till case, raising the question of how to handle race-related news in the news media. By 1960, observers and the press itself agreed that coverage of blacks had improved in both the Northern and Southern press. The Till case gave America a harsh, inescapable glimpse of racial violence and injustice. Even so, problems in the press coverage of minority groups persist, and the task begun more than 30 years ago remains to be completed.

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The Arrest of Rosa Parks

December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama Rosa Parks was the focus of a lot of attention.  She was arrested for sitting in the white section of a bus and when asked to moved for a white man, she refused leading to her arrest.

Her actions would lead to other members of the African American society to boycott Montgomery City buses.

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Martin Luther King's Response to Rosa Parks' Arrest

Dr. King gives his thoughts on the arrest of Rosa Parks in 1956 due to her refusal to move for a white passenger.  He ends his speech making it clear that African Americans will not stop protesting until something is done about the inequality.

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Bus Boycott

      The Montgomery Bus Boycott, in which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating, took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the U.S. On December 1, 1955, four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, refused to yield her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus. She was arrested and fined.

     The Montgomery bus boycott lasted for more than a year, demonstrating a new spirit of protest among Southern blacks. Martin Luther King’s serious demeanor and consistent appeal to Christian brotherhood and American idealism made a positive impression on whites outside the South. Incidents of violence against black protesters, focused media attention on Montgomery.

     This political cartoon was once in the media illustrating the African Americans struggle for equality. During the Montgomery bus boycott, which kicked off the Civil Rights Movement and introduced Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as a national leader, Blacks refused to ride the buses for over a year until they were finally assured they could ride with dignity.

– Cartoon by Laura Gray, The Militant, Feb. 13, 1956.

 

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Civil Rights and the Media

This video shows how the media has had a huge impact on the Civil Rights Movement in America. The video is chronologically ordered beginning with the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and ended with Fannie Lou Hamer and her speech in Atlantic City in 1964.