Summary Of The Race Beat By Gene Roberts And Klibanoff

In The Race Beat, authors Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff explore the struggle of civil rights in the South from the early 1900’s to the 1960’s. Some major events during this time include World War I, World War II, the Brown vs. Board of Education case, the Voting Rights Act, sporadic periods of lynchings and riots, the Civil Rights Act, Jackie Robinson’s career with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the achievements of Martin Luther King Junior. Within this book is the examination of various means of publicity and their significance to the civil rights movement. The authors employ mediums such as journalism, interviews, television broadcasting, and articles to support the claim that the Press has the power to drastically change race relations within

As the Negro Press became more popular, reporters began to exaggerate certain achievements and overly dramatize crimes against negroes. In addition, reporters from Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, Baltimore, New York, and other cities began to cover lynch stories in the deep South. One of the reporters, Vincent Tubbs, describes the hostility of being a negro reporter in those areas (18-19). The truth of unequal treatment of negroes was beginning to spread across the nation. Another milestone was when Wendell Smith endeavored to help the integration of baseball. He played an important role in the success of Jackie Robinson’s baseball career. Even though overall efforts to integrate baseball failed, the Negro Press was slowly achieving it’s goal of creating publicity (18-20). Going back to Myrdal’s vision for the improvement of negro standards of living, Negro editors were butting there way into the nation’s way of thinking. The voice of the salvation for race discrimination laid in the hands of the Negro Press. Additionally, Roberts and Klibanoff use convincing evidence from CBS news that helped spread news about Negro soldiers, one of many televised channels that helped spread the movement

Courts put minimal effort into serving true justice for Till and his family. His two white murderers were let off without punishment, and it was not until later that they were properly investigated, causing the nation to be enraged (87-108). Lucy tried to get into the University of Alabama for four years until finally, in 1956, they accepted her. Not weeks after she attended school did riot against her break out by other students who tracked her schedule (128-135). The Supreme Court’s endeavor to desegregate Southern schools was not going as planned. These violent incidences evoke certain emotions in the audience reading this book today in addition to those exposed to it back then. Television broadcasts were primarily responsible for displaying public violence and they had a great affect on viewers and ultimately the