The Media & the Black Freedom Movement

The years following World War II were ones of significant cultural changes in America. One important change was the result of the development of television, technology that broadcast images across the entire country to boxes located within individual homes. Sig Mickelson (1998) writes, "There had been some limited television before the war but it was little more than a rich man's toy" (p. 1). He notes that technological advances of the 1950s "combined to simplify the reporting and recording process and reduce time elapsed between event and transmission. It also enabled producers and reporters to experiment with new devices and new processes to make their reports more interesting and attractive" (p. 2). As television was being invented and refined, programmers were also inventing and refining the language of mass media.

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rotest marches, opposing the white bureaucracy that was attempting to maintain the increasingly offensive status quo. In fact, Kazin (1995) contends, these kinds of images had a power to shape other kinds of social protest, as well: The creators of the white New Left proudly modeled themselves on the young African Americans who . . . were braving bombs, bullets, firehoses, and jail to bring authentic democracy to the South . . . For the first time, significant numbers of white activists proclaimed a desire to take their cues from a primarily black movement (p. 199). In this context, television served an important educational role, teaching activists how to effectively get their message to the general public and validating new ways of achieving their goals. At the same time, television helped to illustrate subtle differences within movements. Without editorializing or detailed journalistic exploration, television was able to communicate the contrast between Martin Luther King Jr.'s inclusive, nonviolent protest style and the separatist approach of the radical Black Power movement, if only by showing the absence of white faces in the ranks of the latter. J. Kenneth Benson (1976) writes, "It was clear from the outset that th
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Approximate Word count = 1408
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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