Television News and the Civil Rights Struggle:
The Views in Virginia and Mississippi
The Views in Virginia and Mississippi
William G. Thomas III, University of Virginia
Abstract:
It is often suggested that national television news coverage of the
civil rights movement helped transform the United States by showing Americans the violence
of segregation and the dignity of the African American quest for equal rights. In the
American South, local television news coverage had immediate and significant effects. This
essay argues that local television news broadcasts in Virginia in the fifties began to
address the segregation issue in ways substantially more balanced and desegregated than
the print media, while a major television station in Jackson, Mississippi, worked hard to
defend segregation and deny access to opposing voices, both local and national.
Essay Sections:
Abstract | Introduction
| Print Media and Segregation | Birmingham
and Danville, 1963 | Local Television News and the Breakdown of
Segregation | The March on Washington and Television News |
WLBT and Pro-Segregation TV | Conclusion |
Notes | Bibliography
A General Note to Readers: I have intended this essay
to be read and the films viewed together. Rather than narrate the films,
I have presented analysis of them and have introduced them to the reader
at the appropriate moments. The essay is intended as a multimedia and
hypertextual analysis and is argued in such a way that readers will need
to view these films in order that they might interpret and analyze them.
These films are from two television stations in Roanoke, Virginia, WSLS
and WDBJ. Taken together, the stations have retained approximately 400
films—probably the only remaining films from the period in Virginia.
The WSLS collection is archived on 8 millimeter film and accompanied by
the nightly news anchor scripts. The WDBJ footage was preserved in the
station's recent history and is no longer available in its original form.
The Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia,
along with the Robertson Media Center, is working to digitize and provide
internet access to the full set of civil rights films with commentary
and other materials. No film, image, or text in this essay may be reproduced,
copied, or distributed without permission of the author and the rights
holders.
Essay Sections:
Abstract | Introduction
| Print Media and Segregation | Birmingham
and Danville, 1963 | Local Television News and the Breakdown of
Segregation | The March on Washington and Television News |
WLBT and Pro-Segregation TV | Conclusion |
Notes | Bibliography
