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  Segregated society (“separate but equal”)  Entrenched opposition to change,

especially among white Southerners  Many blacks were poor, owned little

property, held unskilled jobs, were mistreated in the courts, and were deprived of education.

 Blacks were generally not allowed to vote.

 By W.J. Cash, once an editor of the Charlotte News (predecessor of Ashmore)

 A study of the psyche of the Southern white ◦ Violence ◦  Impulsiveness ◦ Racial intolerance, even cruelty

(P. 14)  Accommodationism ◦  Conservative, gradual, cooperative with

segregationists  Confrontationalism ◦  Attacks on discrimination

  Scientific radicalism ◦  Criticism of black leaders who could be

persuaded by whites   Separatism ◦  Racial purity, separate institutions for blacks, even

a separate nation

 The war had ended in 1945.  During it, the U.S. had fought bigotry

and injustice, such as Hitler’s persecution and murder of Jews.

 How could the U.S. accept racism at home? Chapter 3

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 They would fight … ◦ To open the Southern mainstream to blacks ◦ To bring the South into the national

mainstream

 They weren’t necessarily pushing integration — at least, not at first.

 They sought racial progress by evolution, not revolution.

  In the 1940s, they feared that an end to segregation could invite racial cataclysm.

 But they sought better schools and opposed demagogues, lynching and the poll tax.

 What they did push ◦ National unity ◦ Obeying federal law ◦ Rising above regionalism

 Their positions evolved.

 Harry Ashmore (Charlotte & Little Rock)  Ralph McGill (Atlanta)  Hodding Carter Jr. (Greenville, Miss.)  Hazel Brannon Smith (Lexington, Miss.)  Buford Boone (Tuscaloosa)  Lenoir Chambers (Norfolk, Va.)  Bill Baggs (Miami)

 Born in Greenville, S.C.  Army lieutenant colonel  Nieman Fellow   Influenced by Myrdal’s

“An American Dilemma”

 Charlotte News  Arkansas Gazette

(Little Rock)

“I’ve come to believe that the important things, the essential freedoms, the democratic processes are luxuries, not inalienable rights, and the price we must pay for them is high. Sometimes we fight to preserve them with guns, sometimes with typewriters, but always we must stand ready to fight.”

—Harry Ashmore

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 Born in east Tennessee  Met Myrdal in Sweden

while traveling under a fellowship

 The Atlanta Constitution

  Front-page columnist

“There may be separation of the races and still equal justice before the law; equal opportunity to use one’s skills and still not have to mix with other workers; equal opportunity for education, without mixing in schools.”

—Ralph McGill

  Southern regional reporter for The New York Times — its first full-time correspondent in the South

 Dapper and cheery  Raised in Virginia  Covered the news at

a slow pace.

  Its editors wanted “thoughtful stories, sensible, high-minded coverage, with little expectation that the job would entail daily reports of breaking news.”

 But the pace would quicken, and The Times would have to change course.

  It peaked in the 1950s and 1960s, the authors say (p. 7).

 News coverage brought “significant and enduring changes” in … ◦ Civil rights ◦ The way print media and TV 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.”

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 Broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, joining the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

  It was a chance for blacks to show they could compete.

His story became the first running race story that the white press covered along with the black press.

  J. Waties Waring, Charleston, S.C.

  In 1947, he ruled that … ◦  Blacks were entitled to attend

state law school. ◦  They were entitled to participate

in the Democratic Party primary.  Handled Levi Pearson’s suit on

free student transportation, which led to Brown v. Board of Education.

 4 main candidates in general election ◦  President Harry S. Truman (Democrat) ◦ New York Gov. Tom Dewey (Republican) ◦ Henry Wallace (Progressive) ◦  South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond

(Dixiecrat — States’ Rights Jeffersonian Democratic Party)

 Most black papers endorsed Dewey.  Two-third of blacks voted for Truman.

Why is this man smiling?

  Republican governor of California

  Tom Dewey’s running mate   Lost the 1948 presidential

election.   President Dwight Eisenhower

appointed him chief justice of the United States.

  Warren led the Supreme Court when it ruled in 1954 on Brown v. Board of Education, outlawing school segregation.