The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation (Vintage),   ISBN:9780679735656

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I mentioned in my book as to how heroic the "white boys" of the press were, and how they helped in the civil rights fights, now long ago. On a couple of occassions, you were in more danger than you realized.
Thank you for giving good research and a good reading to Emory O. Jackson, of the BIRMINGHAM WORLD newspaper. Emory was a "civil rights fighter" down in Hell, long before M.L.King and many others came along.

Those who chose to read, will see that history was more than King having a dream in Washington, with his arm in the air!

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As a child I lived through the racial and political drama of the 1950s and '60s, saw the photos and headlines and witnessed the rise of television news, but there was an element of only seeing the media forest and missing the reportorial trees. Later I read many histories of this country, the 20th century, the struggle for civil rights and the lives of both leaders and the people they led, but still didn't grasp the import of the writers who covered it all in real time. Still later I wrote a biography of a minister who claimed, without much basis in fact, to have been a leader in the civil rights movement and subsequently composed a short history of the African American community in Asheville, North Carolina, and still managed to miss the story behind the stories.

All that has changed with my reading of this book. If you have any interest in the media you will be both fascinated by this history and wonderfully informed about the rise and subsidence of black newspapers, the integration of news rooms and the way TV came of age in tandem with its coverage of desegregation and the battle for the soul of the South. Finally, if you are in any way connected to the news business you will swell with pride at the tireless bravery of the reporters who faced down racist terrorism, who were threatened, beaten, battered and bloodied but who kept on the story. As corporate owners now squeeze the life out of newspapers and TV news in pursuit of bigger bottom lines, it is well worthwhile to carefully consider the critical importance of the media they are killing.

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I read this book when it first came out and knew right away it was one of the very best I had ever read. Other reviewers have done an excellent job of pointing out many of the book's virtues, but I wish to call attention to one other. When Emmit Till's battered body was sent home, his mother demanded that his casket be open so that everyone could see the cruel mutilation he had suffered. More important--for historical purposes--she allowed his body to be photographed by JET and EBONY, the two black magazines with national circulation. The result was that for the first time white Americans had to look directly at a horrific truth they had been able until then to ignore. Ironically, it was at the trial of Emmit Till's accused murderers that the white press took over the civil rights story. Mrs. Till deserves more honor than she has received; her courage changed history.

I wish I could give the book ten stars.

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At its heart, The Race Beat is a thoroughly researched, well-written explanation of how democracy and justice cannot survive without a free, vigilant press.

Yet, the book is hardly a benediction of the American news media: One of the core conflicts throughout is how conservative Southern editors, publishers and station owners collaborated with segregationist politicians and white civic groups. While a few editors in the Deep South braved public backlash, canceled subscriptions and death threats to do the right thing, most did not.

Some, like The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi, made it their mission to undo the civil rights movement. That paper, for instance, placed a photo of some litter found on a D.C. street the day after Martin Luther King's famous march on Washington, giving it the headline, "Washington Is Free From Trash." (It would be another two decades or so before The Clarion-Ledger would exorcise its racial demons.)

That's just one of many nauseating episodes described in The Race Beat in which many Southern media fought against justice instead of protecting it. And Roberts and Klibanoff do a tremendous job of telling the story of the storytellers, and bringing them to life, warts and all, across two pivotal decades, give or take.

If I have one criticism, it's that the last two chapters are a little rushed. The signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 marks the book's climax, and the subsequent tumult -- including race riots in the North and the assassination of Martin Luther King -- gets just two, relatively brief chapters. The book is about 450 pages if you don't count the extensive bibliography and acknowledgments. It wouldn't have hurt to give it another hundred pages.

But overall, The Race Beat is a remarkable achievement. It's an absolute must-read for every journalist and is highly-recommended for anyone else.

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This book taught me much about the Black (Negro) press in America, and how the rise of the Civil Rights movement paradoxically sent that journalistic milieu into permanent decline. Happily, the reason for this decline was due to the corresponding success in achieving electoral and judicial equality for people of color. This is also a book full of informative tidbits; did you know that the same James Kilpatrick you see on TV was a racist and opponent of Civil Rights legislation? He doesn't talk about that much, these days--and he's never apologized. This is a useful and well-written book; I recommend it!