What patterns emerge in media coverage and character depiction of Southern men and women, blacks and whites, in the years between 1954 and 1976? How do portrayals of the region and the equal rights movement illuminate the spirit and experience of the South--and of the nation as a whole? In Framing the South, Allison Graham examines the ways in which the media, particularly television and film, presented Southerners during the period of the civil rights revolution.

Graham analyzes depictions of southern race and social class in a wide range of Hollywood films--including A...