{"product_id":"the-race-beat-isbn-9780679735656","title":"The Race Beat","description":"An unprecedented examination of how news stories, editorials and photographs in the American press—and the journalists responsible for them—profoundly changed the nation’s thinking about civil rights in the South during the 1950s and ‘60s. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRoberts and Klibanoff draw on private correspondence, notes from secret meetings, unpublished articles, and interviews to show how a dedicated cadre of newsmen—black and white—revealed to a nation its most shameful shortcomings that compelled its citizens to act.  Meticulously researched and vividly rendered, \u003ci\u003eThe Race Beat\u003c\/i\u003e is an extraordinary account of one of the most calamitous periods in our nation’s history, as told by those who covered it.“A masterpiece . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Race Beat\u003c\/i\u003e is a riveting piece of social history that balances both its subjects brilliantly . . . There has never been a better study of the importance of a free press.”—\u003ci\u003eThe Philadelphia Inquirer\u003c\/i\u003e“Fascinating. . . . Just when you think there's nothing left to say about the civil rights movement, [\u003ci\u003eThe Race Beat\u003c\/i\u003e] pulls you back in.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Los Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Race Beat\u003c\/i\u003e has good characters, good yarns and good thinking.  Just as important, though, it’s got a good heart.” —\u003ci\u003eNewsweek \u003c\/i\u003e“Research for \u003ci\u003eThe Race Beat \u003c\/i\u003eis meticulous, uncovering many facts that have gone unreported in other books about the movement . . . proves a necessary addition to anyone interested in learning more about the movement and the journalists whose work helped transform the South and, indeed, the nation.” —\u003ci\u003eChicago Sun-Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eGene Roberts\u003c\/b\u003e is a retired journalism professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. He was a reporter and editor with the \u003ci\u003eDetroit Free Press\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Raleigh, \u003c\/i\u003eN.C.\u003ci\u003e, News \u0026amp; Observer\u003c\/i\u003e, Norfolk \u003ci\u003eVirginian-Pilot \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Goldsboro News-Argus \u003c\/i\u003ebefore joining \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times \u003c\/i\u003ein 1965, where until 1972 he served as chief Southern and civil rights correspondent, chief war correspondent in South Vietnam, and national editor. During his 18 years as executive editor of \u003ci\u003eThe Philadelphia Inquirer\u003c\/i\u003e, his staff won 17 Pulitzer Prizes. He later became managing editor of the Times.A native of Alabama, \u003cb\u003eHank Klibanoff\u003c\/b\u003e is the Managing editor\/news at \u003ci\u003eThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution\u003c\/i\u003e. He is the former Deputy Managing Editor for \u003ci\u003eThePhiladelphia Inquirer\u003c\/i\u003e, where he worked for 20 years. He was also a reporter for three years at the \u003ci\u003eBoston Globe \u003c\/i\u003eand six years in Mississippi for \u003ci\u003eThe Daily Herald\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSouth Mississippi Sun \u003c\/i\u003e(now the \u003ci\u003eSun-Herald\u003c\/i\u003e) and the \u003ci\u003eGreenville Delta Democrat Times\u003c\/i\u003e.Chapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn American Dilemma:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An Astonishing Ignorance . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003eThe winter of 1940 was a cruel one for Gunnar Myrdal, and spring was    shaping up even worse. He was in the United States, finishing the    research on the most comprehensive study yet of race relations and    the condition of Negroes in America. But he was having trouble    reaching conclusions, and he struggled to outline and conceptualize    the writing. “The whole plan is now in danger of breaking down,” he    wrote the Carnegie Foundation, which was underwriting his project.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat’s more, the gathering crisis in Europe had thrown him into a    depression; he feared for the very existence of his native Sweden. In    April, Nazi Germany had invaded Denmark and Norway. Myrdal believed    Sweden would be next. He put aside more than two years of work by 125    researchers and began arranging passage home for himself, his wife,    Alva, and their three children. He and Alva wanted to fight alongside    their countrymen if the worst should come. The boat he found, the    \u003ci\u003eMathilda Thorden\u003c\/i\u003e, a Finnish freighter, was laden with explosives, and    the captain tried to dissuade the Myrdals from boarding the dangerous    ship. When this failed, the captain jokingly urged Myrdal to look on    the bright side. He would not have to worry about his family freezing    to death in icy waters. If German U-boats attacked, the resulting    explosion would almost certainly kill everyone instantly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe U-boats did not attack, and the Myrdals arrived in Sweden only to    be appalled by what was happening there. Rather than preparing for    war with Germany, the Swedish government was seeking an accommodation    with the Nazis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKnowing that Germany was monitoring the Swedish press for anti-German    sentiment, the government first confiscated copies of anti-Nazi    newspapers; then, emboldened, it interfered with the distribution of    one of the nation’s most important dailies, \u003ci\u003eGöteborgs Handelstidning\u003c\/i\u003e.    This, Myrdal believed, could not happen in America. He was outraged.    “The press is strangled,” he wrote to a Swedish friend in the United    States. “Nothing gets written about Germany. News is suppressed.”1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere and then, Myrdal’s understanding of America and its race    relations became crystallized. In a book that quickly took precedence    over his Carnegie project, then became its seed, Gunnar and Alva    Myrdal wrote \u003ci\u003eKontakt med Amerika\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003eContact with America\u003c\/i\u003e), which was    crafted largely to rally Swedish resistance against Hitler. In    \u003ci\u003eKontakt\u003c\/i\u003e, published in 1941, the Myrdals argued that Swedes had much    to learn from America about democracy, dialogue, and self-criticism.    “The secret,” they wrote, “is that America, ahead of every other    country in the whole Western world, large or small, has a living    system of expressed ideals for human cooperation which is unified,    stable and clearly formulated.”2 The Carnegie project, they added,    was evidence of America’s willingness to sanction a sweeping    examination and discussion of a national problem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlmost all of America’s citizens, the Myrdals said, believed in free    speech and a free press. Americans respected other viewpoints even    when they strongly disagreed. As a result, diverse ethnic groups were    living with one another in peace while Europe was tearing itself apart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBefore writing \u003ci\u003eKontakt\u003c\/i\u003e, Myrdal didn’t have the insight or context he    needed for his weightier book on race in America. Nor did he have the    words he felt would serve as the road map to change. Three years    earlier, in 1938, he had reached the South, the dark side of the    moon. There, he had found an enigmatic, sometimes exotic, always    deeply divided and repressive society whose behavior was known to,    but overlooked by, the world beyond. In pursuit of an understanding    and insight that was still beyond his grasp, his immersion had been    total, the details of his discoveries had been staggering, and he had    come to a point where he was no longer horrified by the pathology of    racism or stunned by the cruelty and pervasiveness of discrimination.    He had found himself fascinated by the way an entire social order had    been built, and rationalized, around race.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy early 1940, Myrdal frequently found himself feeling oddly    optimistic about attitudes he found despicable, and he was moving,    somewhat unwittingly, toward the conclusion that would become the    core definition of his landmark work, \u003ci\u003eAn American Dilemma:\u003c\/i\u003e that    Americans, for all their differences, for all their warring and    rivalries, were bound by a distinct “American creed,” a common set of    values that embodied such concepts as fair play and an equal chance    for everyone. He was coming to that view in the unlikeliest of    settings. He had been able to sit with the rapaciously racist U.S.    senator from Mississippi Theodore Bilbo, listen to his proposal for    shipping Negroes back to Africa, ask why he hadn’t proposed instead    that they be sterilized, and come away uplifted by Bilbo’s answer.    “American opinion would never allow it,” Bilbo had told him. “It goes    against all our ideals and the sentiments of the people.”3\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut for all his excitement, information, and knowledge, Myrdal    remained mystified. How had the South’s certifiable, pathological    inhumanity toward Negroes been allowed to exist for so long into the    twentieth century? Why didn’t anyone outside the South know? If they    did know, why didn’t they do something about it? Who could do    something about it? Who would? Where would the leadership for change    come from?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMyrdal returned to the United States and his racial study in 1941,    brimming with the insights he would need for \u003ci\u003eAn American Dilemma\u003c\/i\u003e to have an impact on the country.4 Seeing his homeland’s willingness to trade freedoms for security of another kind, Myrdal came to appreciate the    vital role the American press could play in challenging the status    quo of race relations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Sweden, newspapers wanted to report the news but were blocked by    the government. In America, the First Amendment kept the government    in check, but the press, other than black newspapers and a handful of    liberal southern editors, simply didn’t recognize racism in America    as a story. The segregation of the Negro in America, by law in the    South and by neighborhood and social and economic stratification in    the North, had engulfed the press as well as America’s citizens. The    mainstream American press wrote about whites but seldom about Negro    Americans or discrimination against them; that was left to the Negro    press.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMyrdal had a clear understanding of the Negro press’s role in    fostering positive discontent. He saw the essential leadership role    that southern moderate and liberal white editors were playing by    speaking out against institutionalized race discrimination, yet he    was aware of the anguish they felt as the pressure to conform    intensified. There was also the segregationist press in the South    that dehumanized Negroes in print and suppressed the biggest story in    their midst. And he came to see the northern press—and the national    press, such as it was—as the best hope for force-feeding the rest of    the nation a diet so loaded with stories about the cruelty of racism    that it would have to rise up in protest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The Northerner does not have his social conscience and all his    political thinking permeated with the Negro problem as the Southerner    does,” Myrdal wrote in the second chapter of \u003ci\u003eAn American Dilemma\u003c\/i\u003e.    “Rather, he succeeds in forgetting about it most of the time. The Northern    newspapers help him by minimizing all Negro news, except crime news.  The Northerners want to hear as little as possible about the Negroes,    both in the South and in the North, and they have, of course, good reasons    for that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The result is an astonishing ignorance about the Negro on the part    of the white public in the North. White Southerners, too, are    ignorant of many phases of the Negro’s life, but their ignorance has    not such a simple and unemotional character as that in the North.    There are many educated Northerners who are well informed about    foreign problems but almost absolutely ignorant about Negro    conditions both in their own city and in the nation as a whole.”5\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLeft to their own devices, white people in America would want to keep    it that way, Myrdal wrote. They’d prefer to be able to accept the    stereotype that Negroes “are criminal and of disgustingly, but    somewhat enticingly, loose sexual morals; that they are religious and    have a gift for dancing and singing; and that they are the happy-go-   lucky children of nature who get a kick out of life which white    people are too civilized to get.”6\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMyrdal concluded that there was one barrier between the white    northerner’s ignorance and his sense of outrage that the creed was    being poisoned. That barrier was knowledge, incontrovertible    information that was strong enough, graphic enough, and constant    enough to overcome “the opportunistic desire of the whites for    ignorance.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A great many Northerners, perhaps the majority, get shocked and    shaken in their conscience when they learn the facts,” Myrdal wrote.    “The average Northerner does not understand the reality and the    effects of such discriminations as those in which he himself is    taking part in his routine of life.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen, underscoring his point in italics, Myrdal reached the    conclusion that would prove to be uncannily prescient. Even before he    got to the fiftieth page of his tome, he wrote, \u003ci\u003e“To get publicity is    of the highest strategic importance to the Negro people.”\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe added, “There is no doubt, in the writer’s opinion, that a great    majority of white people in America would be prepared to give the    Negro a substantially better deal if they knew the facts.”7\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe future of race relations, Myrdal believed, rested largely in the    hands of the American press.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAn American Dilemma\u003c\/i\u003e was both a portrait of segregation and a mirror    in which an emerging generation of southerners would measure    themselves. In a few short years, the book would have a personal    impact on a core group of journalists, judges, lawyers, and    academicians, who, in turn, would exercise influence on race    relations in the South over the next two decades. The book would    become a cornerstone of the Supreme Court’s landmark verdict against    school segregation a full decade later, and it would become a    touchstone by which progressive journalists, both southern and    northern, would measure how far the South had come, how far it had to    go, and the extent of their roles and responsibilities.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Myrdal investigation was so incisive and comprehensive—monumental, even—that it would for many years remain a mandatory    starting point for anyone seriously studying race in the United    States. Its timing was perfect. Most of its fieldwork occurred in the    three years before the United States entered World War II, a period    in which segregation in the South was as rigid as it ever got. The    book ran 1,483 pages long yet was a distillation of a raw product    that included 44 monographs totaling 15,000 pages.8\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMore remarkable than the study’s impact was its foresight. The coming    years would prove, time and again, the extraordinary connection    between news coverage of race discrimination—publicity, as Myrdal    called it—and the emerging protest against discrimination—the civil    rights movement, as it became known. That movement grew to be the    most dynamic American news story of the last half of the twentieth    century.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt no other time in U.S. history were the news media—another phrase    that did not exist at the time—more influential than they were in the    1950s and 1960s, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. From the    news coverage came significant and enduring changes not only in the    civil rights movement but also in the way the print and television    media did their jobs. There is little in American society that was    not altered by the civil rights movement. There is little in the    civil rights movement that was not changed by the news coverage of    it. And there is little in the way the news media operate that was    not influenced by their coverage of the movement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAn American Dilemma\u003c\/i\u003e began with a decision by the Carnegie Corporation    to conduct a comprehensive study of race in America, and especially of segregation and white supremacy in the South. Recalling the    contribution of Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman, in his book    Democracy in America, the foundation decided its racial study should    be headed by a non-American scholar from a country with no history of    colonialism or racial domination.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the beginning, Myrdal declined the Carnegie offer. He was, after    all, a member of the House of the Swedish Parliament, the rough    equivalent of the U.S. Senate. He was also a director of the national    bank at a moment when Sweden was hobbled by economic depression. He    would have to resign both positions and take leave from a prestigious    chair in economics at the University of Stockholm, where he was    considered one of the nation’s most brilliant academics. What’s more,    the Myrdals had recently found an ideological home and leadership    positions in the reform policies of the Social Democratic Party,    which favored social engineering and economic planning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was fluent in English and no stranger to the United States. He and    Alva, a psychologist, had been fellows in the Rockefeller    Foundation’s social science program in 1929–30. He had refused the    Rockefeller Foundation traveling fellowship for himself until the    foundation agreed to make Alva a fellow as well.9 No one at the    foundation had reason to regret the deal. Indeed, officials of the    Rockefeller Foundation regarded Gunnar Myrdal as one of the program’s    great successes and recommended him with enthusiasm to Frederick P.    Keppel, president of the Carnegie Corporation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter saying no, Myrdal changed his mind, but only on the condition    that he have complete control over planning the study. The foundation    agreed. Myrdal became enthusiastic. “I shall work on the Negro—I will    do nothing else,” he wrote. “I shall think and dream of the Negro 24    hours a day. . . .”10\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe began work in September 1938, almost immediately on his arrival,    and plunged into it with confidence; he viewed himself as “born    abnormally curious” and specially suited to the investigation of a    complicated social problem.11\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn his first field trip, Myrdal was accompanied by his primary    researcher and writer, Ralph Bunche, a UCLA- and Harvard-educated    Negro whose urbane presence was more jarring than Myrdal’s in some    parts of the South. Myrdal was stunned by what he saw. Though    prepared for the worst, the Swedish economist had not anticipated    anything like this. “I didn’t realize,” he promptly wrote his    sponsor, Keppel, “what a terrible problem you have put me into. I    mean we are horrified.”12\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo get an understanding of segregation, the talkative Myrdal and his    team moved through the southern states, absorbing experiences, data,    impressions, previous studies, and viewpoints.13 The South they    discovered was but a single lifetime, fifty-six years, removed from    the end of Reconstruction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs an economist, he was staggered by the material plight of Negroes.    It was so grindingly desperate that only one word seemed to describe    it: pathological. For southern Negroes, poverty had become a disease    of epidemic proportions. “Except for a small minority enjoying upper    or middle class status, the masses of American Negroes, in the rural    south and in the segregated slum quarters in southern cities, are    destitute,” Myrdal wrote. “They own little property; even their    household goods are mostly inadequate and dilapidated. Their incomes    are not only low but irregular. They thus live day to day and have    scant security for the future.”14","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303504400613,"sku":"NP9780679735656","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780679735656.jpg?v=1767741143","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-race-beat-isbn-9780679735656","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}