Here is the story of how the nation's press, after decades of ignoring the problem, came to recognize the importance of the civil-rights struggle and turn it into the most significant domestic news event of the 20th century.
Drawing on private correspondence, notes from secret meetings, unpublished articles, and interviews, veteran journalists Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff go behind the headlines and datelines to show how a dedicated cadre of newsmen - first black reporters, then liberal Southern editors, then reporters and photographers from the national press and the broadcast media - revealed to a nation its most shameful shortcomings and propelled its citizens to act.
We watch the black press move bravely into the front row of the confrontation, only to be attacked and kept away from the action. Following the Supreme Court's 1954 decision striking down school segregation and the South's mobilization against it, we see a growing number of white reporters venture South to cover the Emmett Till murder trial, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the integration of the University of Alabama.
We witness some Southern editors joining the call for massive resistance and working with segregationist organizations to thwart compliance. But we also see a handful of other Southern editors write forcefully and daringly for obedience to federal mandates, signaling to the nation that moderate forces were prepared to push the region into the mainstream.
The pace quickens in Little Rock, where reporters test the boundaries of journalistic integrity, then gain momentum as they cover shuttered schools in Virginia, sit-ins in North Carolina, mob-led riots in Mississippi, Freedom Ride buses being set afire, fire hoses and dogs in Birmingham, and long, tense marches through the rural South.
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"The final quote of the book sums it up well: "If it hadn't been for the media - the print media and television - the civil rights movement would have been like a bird without wings, a choir without a song." The book is amazing - many viewpoints are explored, as well as key events, the roles of the president, Supreme Court, the states, governors, law enforcement, marshals, FBI, preachers, editors, reporters, photographers, students, Martin Luther King, the Ku Klux Klan - it's all here. The nonviolence King preached and how he worked hard to get the press to cover rallies, sit-ins, the Freedom bus ride, black students integrating into schools and colleges, and any other event where nonviolent black protesters were met with violent law enforcement who used dogs, fire hoses, tear gas and clubs to beat anyone who got in their way. I was stunned at the number of murders not just white racists, but also police (sheriffs and deputies) got away with - even in court, even after white witnesses testified to the murderer's guilt. I also didn't realize the extent of the danger to the reporters and photographers covering all of these events, as well. Many of them were brutally beaten and their cameras (and film) destroyed. An in-depth, eye-opening and deeply moving book."
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Dawn (5 out of 5 stars)