Watching Jim Crow

The Struggles over Mississippi TV, 1955–1969

Nonfiction, Entertainment, Performing Arts, Television, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science, Social Science
Cover of the book Watching Jim Crow by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel, Duke University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel ISBN: 9780822385424
Publisher: Duke University Press Publication: March 12, 2004
Imprint: Duke University Press Books Language: English
Author: Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
ISBN: 9780822385424
Publisher: Duke University Press
Publication: March 12, 2004
Imprint: Duke University Press Books
Language: English

In the early 1960s, whenever the Today Show discussed integration, wlbt-tv, the nbc affiliate in Jackson, Mississippi, cut away to local news after announcing that the Today Show content was “network news . . . represent[ing] the views of the northern press.” This was only one part of a larger effort by wlbt and other local stations to keep African Americans and integrationists off Jackson’s television screens. Watching Jim Crow presents the vivid story of the successful struggles of African Americans to achieve representation in the tv programming of Jackson, a city many considered one of the strongest bastions of Jim Crow segregation. Steven D. Classen provides a detailed social history of media activism and communications policy during the civil rights era. He focuses on the years between 1955—when Medgar Evers and the naacp began urging the two local stations, wlbt and wjtv, to stop censoring African Americans and discussions of integration—and 1969, when the U.S. Court of Appeals issued a landmark decision denying wlbt renewal of its operating license.

During the 1990s, Classen conducted extensive interviews with more than two dozen African Americans living in Jackson, several of whom, decades earlier, had fought to integrate television programming. He draws on these interviews not only to illuminate their perceptions—of the civil rights movement, what they accomplished, and the present as compared with the past—but also to reveal the inadequate representation of their viewpoints in the legal proceedings surrounding wlbt’s licensing. The story told in Watching Jim Crow has significant implications today, not least because the Telecommunications Act of 1996 effectively undid many of the hard-won reforms achieved by activists—including those whose stories Classen relates here.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

In the early 1960s, whenever the Today Show discussed integration, wlbt-tv, the nbc affiliate in Jackson, Mississippi, cut away to local news after announcing that the Today Show content was “network news . . . represent[ing] the views of the northern press.” This was only one part of a larger effort by wlbt and other local stations to keep African Americans and integrationists off Jackson’s television screens. Watching Jim Crow presents the vivid story of the successful struggles of African Americans to achieve representation in the tv programming of Jackson, a city many considered one of the strongest bastions of Jim Crow segregation. Steven D. Classen provides a detailed social history of media activism and communications policy during the civil rights era. He focuses on the years between 1955—when Medgar Evers and the naacp began urging the two local stations, wlbt and wjtv, to stop censoring African Americans and discussions of integration—and 1969, when the U.S. Court of Appeals issued a landmark decision denying wlbt renewal of its operating license.

During the 1990s, Classen conducted extensive interviews with more than two dozen African Americans living in Jackson, several of whom, decades earlier, had fought to integrate television programming. He draws on these interviews not only to illuminate their perceptions—of the civil rights movement, what they accomplished, and the present as compared with the past—but also to reveal the inadequate representation of their viewpoints in the legal proceedings surrounding wlbt’s licensing. The story told in Watching Jim Crow has significant implications today, not least because the Telecommunications Act of 1996 effectively undid many of the hard-won reforms achieved by activists—including those whose stories Classen relates here.

More books from Duke University Press

Cover of the book Poor Whites of the Antebellum South by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
Cover of the book The Return of the Native by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
Cover of the book Stuart Hall's Voice by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
Cover of the book Architecture in Translation by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
Cover of the book The Black Jacobins Reader by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
Cover of the book Banana Wars by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
Cover of the book The Official World by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
Cover of the book Imitations of Life by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
Cover of the book Blacks and Blackness in Central America by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
Cover of the book Secretaries of the Moon by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
Cover of the book Pop When the World Falls Apart by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
Cover of the book Babylon East by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
Cover of the book How Lawyers Lose Their Way by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
Cover of the book Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
Cover of the book The Social Medicine Reader, Second Edition by Steven D. Classen, Lynn Spigel
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy