DOI

https://doi.org/10.25772/J9CN-J024

Defense Date

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

History

First Advisor

John Kneebone

Abstract

Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff in their breakthrough work, The Race Beat, contended that mainstream newspapers—white newspapers—largely ignored the black community until the 1950s and 1960s when editors gradually began opening their pages to reports of racial discrimination and the emerging protest against segregation. This coverage significantly shaped the civil rights movement, Roberts and Klibanoff argued. “Unfamiliar Streets” offers nuance to their narrative. Examining the local coverage of the 1960 Chattanooga sit-in movement as a case study, Jessie Harris contends that reporters and editors, although they should be credited for extensively covering the sit-ins, ultimately cared more for civilities than civil rights. Their coverage detailed the protests, fights, and mobs downtown, but only rarely provided perspectives of student demonstrators and rarely called attention to the injustices of segregation.

Rights

© The Author

Is Part Of

VCU University Archives

Is Part Of

VCU Theses and Dissertations

Date of Submission

May 2011

Included in

History Commons

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