The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation

by Gene Roberts, Hank Klibanoff

book data

91 ratings, 4.26 average rating, 25 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		50%
4		28%
3		17%
2		3%
1		0%

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published

October 31st 2006 by Knopf

binding

Hardcover, 528 pages

literary awards

Pulitzer Prize for History (2007)

isbn

0679403817 (isbn13: 9780679403814)

description

This is the story of how America awakened to its race problem, of how a nation that longed for unity after World War II came instead to see, hear, and...more

[close] This is the story of how America awakened to its race problem, of how a nation that longed for unity after World War II came instead to see, hear, and learn about the shocking indignities and injustices of racial segregation in the South, and the brutality used to enforce it.

It 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 twentieth 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Drawing on private correspondence, notes from secret meetings, unpublished articles, and interviews, veteran journalists Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff go behind the headlines and datelines to show how a dedicated cadre of newsmen,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.

For many journalists, the conditions they found, the fear they felt, and the violence they saw were transforming. Their growing disgust matched the mounting countrywide outrage as The New York Times, Newsweek, NBC News, and other major news organizations, many of them headed by southerners, turned a regional story into a national drama.

Meticulously researched and vividly rendered, The Race Beat is an unprecedented account of one of the most volatile periods in our nation's history, as told by those who covered it. [close]

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04/26/09

Ash rated it:

bookshelves: history, what-i-study

Read in May, 2009

recommends it for: students, Southerners, reporters, media professionals

The first 100 pages or so of this book are s-l-o-w. In part because the Southern press in the 1940s-1960s was a very large group with several key players (an era before media consolidation) the authors have to spend a lot of time setting up the people who will make the next 300 pages fascinating reading. If you can slog through all the names and "who ate lunch with whom and when" stuff you'll be in for a fascinating explanation of how the press augmented the Civil Right's Movement an...more

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05/11/08

Jesse rated it:

Read in June, 2007

An impressive achievement. Covering how the media covered the civil rights movement actually has a whole lot to tell us, not least in revealing how concerted the invisibility was at the most basic level: there were no national media with bureaus in the South until 1947, when the NYT stationed someone there, and not a second one until the LA Times in 1965. So for years the whole movement was left to the vagaries of whatever liberal-minded editors might wish to actually talk about what was going o...more An impressive achievement. Covering how the media covered the civil rights movement actually has a whole lot to tell us, not least in revealing how concerted the invisibility was at the most basic level: there were no national media with bureaus in the South until 1947, when the NYT stationed someone there, and not a second one until the LA Times in 1965. So for years the whole movement was left to the vagaries of whatever liberal-minded editors might wish to actually talk about what was going on in their worlds, the northern black press (which, of course, got elbowed out of the way once bigger, richer white media deigned to get interested), and mostly just plain ignorance of the whole thing. Not that anyone else had much to be proud of: Neil Henry's recent American Carnival talks about how the LA Times had not a single black reporter when the Watts riot hit and so had to send someone from the copy room (most of the reporters didn't even know where Watts was), cites some horrifying editorials in papers in Washington and Chicago that helped stoke race riots in 1919, and also mentions studies showing how often black criminality was the only thing covered in the media. The argument here, which R & K save for about page 405 of 407, is that a few liberal Southern editors essentially filled the void left by the failure of Southern politicians--to present and deal with the world as it was, to offer a reasonably respectable portrait of reality, to allow a forum for solutions reached by some sort of community consensus. And it's pretty compelling anecdotally, maybe the best being when John Chancellor is in the Mississippi delta right after the Emmett Till case and is asking a local black woman what she thinks. A herd of rednecks thunders toward him, and all he can think of to do is hold up his tape recorder and tell them they can do what they want, but the whole world will know. That distracts them enough to give him time to hop in a car and flee. Guess it was too new a technology for someone to realize that they could just smash it.

That book also illuminated Dan Jenkins' Saturday's America, which is an out-of-print compendium of 60s football pieces, mostly I think from Sports Illustrated. A few Northern ones, but mostly good ol' boys from Texas (the wave of Texas writers who went North in the 70s, Willie Morris observes in his memoir of editing Harper's, were so exotic and frontiersmanish as to seem Australian) and environs doing their thang, along with a bunch of old school, Southern-sheriff coaches. They come across as the kind of authoritarian, pro-war (though the only mention of Vietnam in the entire book is Bear Bryant noting that many of his players will probably end up there), pro-American, anti-long-hair types whose opinions are totally predictable before they open their mouths. The only black player who gets any time is OJ Simpson, who's played off against the white UCLA QB right before a big game in which he runs for like 200 yards. So it's an unwitting illustration of the authors' point about the invisibility of certain issues at this time. Those issues are more on view in Jenkins' Semi-Tough, #7 on Sports Illustrated's top 100 sports books, which talks more about race and may well be the filthiest book I've ever read. Honestly--it's like Terry Southern's Blue Movie or Candy, but with occasional bits of football to break up the sex. But mostly a lot of really filthy sex. And farting. Which was clearly very popular with the 1973 Steelers with whom Roy Blount (sort of immortalized as the singer Elroy Blunt in Semi-Tough) lived with for a year, in the excellent and vivid About Three Bricks Shy of a Load--they could discuss and quote one character's productions with affection and respect--but which was also not covered that much in the media. For which we can probably all be thankful.
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01/09/08

Michael rated it:

(review of isbn 0679735658)

Read in January, 2008

This book has two important utilities. The first and more shocking is a as a new look at the brutal violence and racism of the deep South in the United States in the mid-century. Though much of this might be just a rehash for some readers with a firm knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement, many of the anecdotes and events were new to me. The details of the Emmett Till trial were never clear to me before this. The authors render the court room so clearly, through first hand accounts from acti...more This book has two important utilities. The first and more shocking is a as a new look at the brutal violence and racism of the deep South in the United States in the mid-century. Though much of this might be just a rehash for some readers with a firm knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement, many of the anecdotes and events were new to me. The details of the Emmett Till trial were never clear to me before this. The authors render the court room so clearly, through first hand accounts from activists and reporters, that I felt I was reading a long lost Harper Lee story.

School desegregation plays a large part in this narrative. Before Little Rock, there were intensely violent standoffs on the campuses of Southern Universities. Autherine Lucy stands out as a brave woman, far ahead of her time, pushing herself and her country. Many of the governors in the South come off as caricatures of intolerance and brashness. Faubus sounds like a comic character out of Voltaire.

All the sheriff's deputies with their 2nd grade education, driving the black journalists out to the state line, telling them they got five minutes to cross that border. They all crop up, time and time again in the two decades of the major events of the Civil Rights Movement. Whether they're beating down black students, or knocking out white journalists, a vast network of people in Alabama and Mississippi showed themselves to be ignorant and intolerant on a personal and institutional scale that still troubles us today.

The other strain, the focus of the book really, is the story of the journalists, North and South, black and white, who followed the Civil Rights Movement. Klibanoff and Roberts set this amazing story as a narrative that starts with a Swedish scholar, Gunnar Myrdal, who lived in the South for years and chronicled the conditions of its black citizens. Myrdal knew that if the treatment of the black by Southern whites ever got the "publicity" - his word - it needed that the mass of Americans, those Americans who in the 30s and 40s had no idea of the extreme injustice of the South, would be forced out of their complacency, their ambivalence. Myrdal was right, but it would take far too long for that publicity to reach the critical mass necessary to motivate a substantial number of Americans.

Harry Ashmore and Ralph McGill, two progressive Southern editors stand out as exemplars of whites who stood for justice, not only in their editorials, but in their daily lives. John Popham, a dandy Southerner who refused to fly and thus drove thousands of miles all around the South to get his stories, pushed for a mild and optimistic treatment of Southern whites in the pages of The New York Times. Claude Sitton, Popham's replacement, was an amazing reporter, always on the scene, a Southerner with a conscience, reporting what mattered.

L. Alex Wilson's story is one of the noblest and heartbreaking in the book. A black reporter, Wilson suffered not only ridicule in the South, but was severely beaten in Little Rock by angry white thugs wielding bricks. Pictures of Wilson being kicked in the chest as a crowd of angry whites look on is featured in the center of the book. The photographs are startling. Wilson looks on, his face showing neither scorn nor fear. Those whites were pissed, because they felt inferior. I believe it.

This book is essential for any student of American media or the Civil Rights Movement - shocking, intense historical narrative of an important turning point in American history.(less)

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09/28/07

Alice rated it:

bookshelves: read-in-2007

Read in November, 2007

The Race Beat tells the story of the press, its coverage of the civil rights movement, and its importance in effecting change by bringing to the nation's attention the wrongs of segregation. The argument was compelling, exciting, not too I'm-banging-you-over-the-head, and ... it made an important point about the importance of the press.

The writing was easy to read, elegant, but nothing extraordinary. It was the content that hooked me. The stories within the larger story were fa...more The Race Beat tells the story of the press, its coverage of the civil rights movement, and its importance in effecting change by bringing to the nation's attention the wrongs of segregation. The argument was compelling, exciting, not too I'm-banging-you-over-the-head, and ... it made an important point about the importance of the press.

The writing was easy to read, elegant, but nothing extraordinary. It was the content that hooked me. The stories within the larger story were fascinating.

Just a few highlights:
* the Emmett Till trial
* the [attempted] enrollments of Autherine Lucy and J. Meredith
* coverage of the Little Rock Nine
* the role of the press in protecting riders in the Freedom Rides
* the Alabama libel suit against Salisbury and the New York Times (which threatened freedom of the press)
* reporter Chancellor fending off a bunch of thugs with the threat that the whole nation would know about it
* coverage of the Selma to Montgomery march

Really, I could go on. The book is chock full of stories of amazing courage - of people standing up to mobs, and reporters who broadcast their stories to the world.

For me, the only drawback of the book was that the authors named a LOT of names and a LOT of newspapers. In spite of their best efforts to provide interesting personal details about each editor/reporter/photographer named, and backstory on each paper or magazine, I couldn't for the life of me remember who Emory Jackson, or Virginius Dabney, or Lenoir Chambers was. And what's the difference between the Clarion-Ledger and the Atlanta Constitution again, and what's their position on the race issue...?

(A few colorful characters did emerge from the rest of the pack, though, including interposition-theorist Kilpatrick, segregationist Waring, NYT reporter Sitton, hot-headed Bull Connor, and stubborn politician George Wallace. Look for them especially.)

All in all, a worthy and important read about a fascinating time period in American history.(less)

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06/20/07

Skip rated it:

Read in February, 2007

recommends it for: All Southerns and especially journalists

This book could be thought of as one of the definitive accounts of the Civil Rights movement in the South.
It exposes the insolence, cruelty and insular nature of this part of the country up until the mid-60s. Some would argue little has changed. Maybe so. But my faith in humanity says much has changed, and part of what moved this region from lynchings to some sense of Lincoln, was opening the place up and telling the stories. And it was reporters – black and white – who did it, and of...more

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11/01/08

Jonah rated it:

Read in February, 2009

This was an incredible book. It won the Pulitzer Prize for History Book a few years back and it's especially timely as I was reading it pre-Obama and post Obama's election. It's a history of the Civil Rights movement in the South. Not only was it a more detailed review of all the riots and demonstrations that I had learned, it places the history in an interesting context by telling the stories of the reporters sent to cover the struggle and the difficulties these reporters (mostly White) had ...more

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10/01/07

Phayvanh rated it:

bookshelves: 2007, reportage, reviews

Read in February, 2007

recommends it for: journalists and anyone else interested in the struggle

This is such a wonderful and engaging account of the press that helped me to understand the dynamics of media, policy, and public opinion in a way I hadn't thought of it before. It's a chronological account of press coverage, taking into account the movers and shakers in the media world and Southern politics. Gives a lot of attention to the smaller African-American papers.

I encountered this books while working at the bookstore. A local newspaper editor special ordered a copy and I...more

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03/03/09

Cecile rated it:

bookshelves: academic

Read in February, 2009

Won the Pulitzer, so it must be good. It's a bit hard to get into if you are not a whiz when it comes to remembering a long string of people and place names. I probably gave this a lower rating than I should have because I have some issues with Klibanoff's stance on photojournalistic ethics. He's a nice guy, though, so maybe I'm just being contentious...

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12/26/08

Stew rated it:

Read in April, 2009

I had always wanted to read a history book about the Civil Rights era. As a journalist, this angle on the story appealed to me. This is a thoroughly researched book that gives both sides of the story. From the dedicated black and white journalists who came from the north, to the southern segregationist editors and reporters who ended up "on the wrong side of history."
While told in a straightforward "history book" style, there are nevertheless harrowing scenes that make ...more

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01/28/09

Chuck Jackson rated it:

Read in September, 2008

A great, great book. Looks at how journalism covered the civil rights struggle and both changed it and was changed by it. Looks at how broadcast journalism began to come of age during this era.

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04/03/08

Leigh rated it:

Read in January, 2007

This Pulitzer-prize winning book takes a new approach to the history of the Civil Rights Struggle for African-Americans, by focusing on the newspapers and journalists who first wrote -- often at great personal cost -- about this important period in American history. A riveting story and full of great characters: The heroes who are flawed, hesitant, unsure but also hold fast to their moral visions; the villains: smart, canny, ruthless; and the tragic figures who saw what was happening but didn'...more

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04/04/09

Justin rated it:

Excellent. Brilliant reporting, compelling writing, important history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, and well deserved.

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04/17/09

Catherine marked it as to-read

bookshelves: award, historical, non-fiction, to-read

recommended to Catherine by: Pulitzer Prize for History (2007)

Pulitzer Prize for History (2007)

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07/18/07

Erica rated it:

bookshelves: to-read

Read in September, 2007

recommends it for: history lovers

I can't finish this. Not now. I prefer my history books to read like a story. The Race Beat is great journalism. I just can't read this much historical detail in this format.

Plus, knowing that the highlight of the book is going to be reading about Ira A. Lipman makes me want to bash my head against the wall. And I'm a pacifist. This jerk also signed my copy of the book as if he wrote it himself, or as if he is actually a believer in equality for all people.

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04/01/08

Lizzie rated it:

bookshelves: currently-reading, world-literature

Read in April, 2008

Wow.. still in the first chapter but already my mind is swirling with a new view on the civil rights movements answering a question I have long asked - why did it take so long to happen?
I'll keep in in touch but briefly, this book tells the story of a few liberal minded press editors who brought he atrocities of racial hatred to the entire nation and world. The title refers to the beat - or assignment of a news reporter.

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04/29/09

Mark rated it:

Read in June, 2009

Fascinating look at the civil rights movement from the perspective of the reporters (both print & television) who covered it. There's a powerful idea at the heart of this book: images have the power to convince, both for good & for evil.

I recommend it highly.

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07/12/07

Hanna Doerr rated it:

bookshelves: take-it-or-leave-it

Read in August, 2007

The book is well written, but it is the history of a very passionate time (the Civil Rights movement) without any soul. There are no good stories in it! With that said, if you really like journalism and want to hear the facts about media coverage of the movement, you might like this book!

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11/13/07

Jim Naughton rated it:

(review of isbn 0679735658)

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: any citizen of the U.S.

This is the definitive account of news coverage of the American civil rights revolution. Roberts and Klibanoff both are Southerners, both are journalists and both are exemplars of the highest standards of their craft.

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02/22/08

Dickson rated it:

Read in February, 2008

This book approaches a very sad period in our history. We get a fresh view of those times as seen through the eyes of those in the media who covered what they called the "race beat".

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07/10/08

Theresa rated it:

Read in April, 2008

recommends it for: anywho who is interested in history

Great crash course in the who what why and when of the Civil Rights movement! It's long on cd (about 20)so it's a pretty hefty tome but very interesting and so informative.

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