Black Press Coverage of the Emmett Till Lynching

ISBN-13: 9783838308708 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 88 str.

Opis

The movement for civil rights in America gathered momentum throughout the 1950s. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Courts Brown vs. The Board of Education ruling, declaring unconstitutional permissive or mandatory school segregation, the white South responded with both passive and active resistance. In the midst of this ferment, an African-American boy from Chicago was lynched in Mississippi. Subsequent stories in the black press reported not only Emmett Tills murder and the trial, but also a widening mobilization within the race, notably the creation of associations in defense of civil rights. The coverage of news and views in the black press provide substantial evidence that this mobilization ignited the civil rights movement of the mid-1950s, just months before the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr. This research supports the view that the black communitys mobilization during the months after Tills murder served as a catalyst for the civil rights movement.

O autorze

Michael Oby, a native of Baton Rouge, LA, has done extensive research on the Historical Black Press. His published work on the Tuskegee Airmen included interviews with several Airmen. Oby earned Bachelors and Masters Degrees from Georgia State University. He currently teaches Communications classes at Clark Atlanta University.