DOCSLIB.ORG

Coversheet for Thesis in Sussex Research Online

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Coversheet for Thesis in Sussex Research Online A University of Sussex DPhil thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details HOW TO BE AN AMERICAN: COMMUNITY ANTICOMMUNISM AND THE GRASSROOTS RIGHT, 1948-1956 Matthew Glazebrook PhD in American Studies University Of Sussex January 2013 I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Matthew Glazebrook UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX Matthew Glazebrook PhD in American Studies HOW TO BE AN AMERICAN: COMMUNITY ANTICOMMUNISM AND THE GRASSROOTS RIGHT, 1948-1956 SUMMARY This thesis explores the political and cultural impact of community-level conservative activists durinG the early Cold War red scare in America. It provides a comprehensive overview of a hitherto overlooked aspect of the so-called McCarthy-era — amateur counter-subversives who contributed to the national mood of anticommunism in obscure but meaninGful ways. It also establishes significant philosophical and practical connections between disparate groups — some nakedly riGht-winG, others more vaGuely "patriotic" — that demonstrate the existence of a loose but Genuine Grassroots anticommunist network. In the broader historical sense, by contextualizinG the achievements of this embryonic conservative movement, this thesis builds upon and challenges the body of literature that posits the 1960s as the essential decade in the emerGence of the modern, socially conservative Republican riGht. In the last years of the 1940s, factions within the political and legal establishment used red scare rhetoric and new loyalty reGulations to visit brief but potent misery upon their liberal and leftist enemies. At the same time, less well-connected Americans siGned up for the ideoloGical struGGle. Some were members of influential civic organizations — such as the American LeGion — whose long-held enmity towards left-wing politics found fresh urgency in the Cold War aGe; Others joined newly formed pressure Groups with the expressed aim of defendinG their towns and suburbs from Soviet-inspired subversion. Veterans Groups, school board campaiGns, reliGious bodies, and women's patriotic societies: all provided forums for local-level attacks on perceived un- Americanism. This thesis utilizes the literature, letters and ephemera of such organizations, as well as local newspaper reports, legal and political investiGations, and the personal recollections of activists, to document and analyze the most siGnificant actions carried out in the name of community anticommunism. It examines how Grassroots campaiGners worked to reshape what it meant to be American, and finds ways in which their efforts — scorned as absurdly reactionary by contemporary observers — pointed towards a shifting American political landscape. Contents Acknowledgements, p.1 Introduction, p.2 Chapter One, p.33 Peekskill Wakes Up: A Case Study in Community Anticommunism Chapter Two, p.86 One Hundred Per Cent Americans: The Veterans’ Crusade Against Subversion Chapter Three, p.138 A Counterconspiracy of RiGhteousness: Cold War Christianity and its Grassroots Conservative Legacy Chapter Four, p.188 Atom Bombs and RollinG Pins: Women, Gender and Community Activism Chapter Five, p.238 Book Burners and One-Worlders: The Grassroots Battle for America’s Schools Conclusion, p.286 Bibliography, p.299 1 Acknowledgements I am Grateful to my supervisors at the University of Sussex, Clive Webb and Robert Cook, for their advice, encouraGement and support over the past three and a bit years. Thanks must also Go to the staff and faculty at Sussex for their assistance during this project, as well as to the staff at the archives and libraries in which I researched. Several other educators have encouraGed and inspired me prior to embarkinG on this thesis, particularly Scott Lucas and Liam Kennedy at the University of BirminGham, and Andrew O’Hehir at New York University. None of this work would have been possible without financial support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I am also thankful for all the help and indulGence I have received from various friends and family members, particularly those who offered up their beds, sofas and air mattresses durinG my two research trips to America: Charles and Linda Hunnicutt, Jade and Kevin Garrett, Jack and Nicole Glazebrook, John Matson and Elissa Spencer, and Andie Cusick. Many others have given me intellectual and emotional support, includinG Kate Nowicki, Rebecca Laurence, and my parents, Cris and David Glazebrook. Most of all I am indebted to my wife, Phebe Hunnicutt. 2 Introduction For over a decade followinG the end of World War Two, as the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union deteriorated from allies aGainst Nazism to entrenched Cold War enemies, the American political and cultural establishment was Gripped by a fever of anticommunism. This “red scare” took the shape of conGressional investiGations into alleGed State Department treachery, loyalty oaths for Government employees, blacklists in the entertainment industry and purGes of suspect academics. Its protaGonists came from the political and leGal classes — the red-hunting “G-men” of the Federal Bureau of InvestiGation, lawmakers who passed ever more wide-ranGinG anti- sedition measures, ambitious politicians who made names for themselves on the House Committee on Un-American Activities and likeminded bodies. Its most prominent victims were also often representative of relatively privileged social strata, at least until their patriotism was called into question. The red scare that shook the upper echelons of US society from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s has fascinated academics and the General public alike, representinG arGuably the defininG cultural phenomenon of the era in the popular mind, and, indeed, one of the most endurinG and notorious political moments of the American century. Its terminoloGy — McCarthyism, witch-hunts, red-baitinG, naminG names — has passed into general use, by-words for a 3 stranGe aGe of distrust, repression and spite: a “NiGhtmare Decade”, as the title of one scholarly history has it.1 But another version of the red scare emerGed, albeit more quietly, durinG the early Cold War: one that found a home in the front rooms, churches and community forums of ordinary America. This took more esoteric forms. On 1 May 1950, in the tiny central Wisconsin community of Mosinee, citizens staged an elaborate “communist takeover” in order to demonstrate the horrors of life in a future United Soviet States. Local war veterans bearing unloaded rifles “seized” the library, school and paper mill and “liquidated” employees to a work camp on the edGe of town. The main street cinema was “nationalized” and renamed the People’s Theater; cafeterias ramped up prices to extortionate levels while townsfolk queued good-naturedly for black bread and potato soup. Two members of the so-called “professional anticommunist” network — ex-reds Benjamin Gitlow and Joseph Kornfeder — stepped in as commissars for the newly formed and short-lived Moscow satellite. At sundown the townsfolk burned their red flags, bade farewell to a coterie of forty newspaper reporters, and returned to lives of all-American obscurity. In Houston, Texas, that same year, an amateur anticommunist overheard a radio producer discussinG Chinese history with the owner of the Chinese restaurant in which he was having dinner. The quick-witted eavesdropper left the establishment and immediately informed the police of this suspiciously red-tinged encounter: as a result of his vigilance, the radio producer and her dinner partner spent fourteen hours in jail before 1 Fred Cook, The Nightmare Decade: The Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy (New York: Random House, 1971). 4 being released without charge. In towns and cities across the nation, anticommunist Groups and individuals fouGht their own little Cold Wars aGainst perceived un-Americanism: others expressed their unease more subtly, worrying to themselves, as did one New York housewife, about a younG acquaintance who “never associated with people his own aGe”, and who “had a foreiGn camera and took so many pictures of the larGe New York bridGes”.2 This second version of the red scare, representinG the anticommunism of the American community, is siGnificantly less well documented than the first. The willinG participants on the Cold War home front are recoGnized in a popular narrative of suspicion, innate conservatism and “hysteria” over exaggerated danGers of communist infiltration. But in terms of a scholarly investigation into the scope and character of the grassroots response to national fears, they are almost entirely absent. As Michael Kazin observed in his essay on “The Grass- Roots RiGht”, “We know that millions of Americans marched in Loyalty Day demonstrations, prayed reGularly for the ‘conversion’ of Russia, idolized General MacArthur after President Truman took away his command, and participated in Red-hunting activities sponsored by Groups like the American LeGion and the John Birch Society [but] we do not know, with any degree of precision, who these mobilizers and followers were.” This thesis bridGes the knowledGe Gap.3 2 Unidentified maGazine clippinG, 15 May 1950, Folder 9-773, Box 5, American Business Consultants, Inc. Counterattack: Research Files, Tamiment Library/WaGner Archives, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University, New York; New York Times, 2 May 1950; DouGlas T. Miller and Marion Nowak, The Fifties: The Way We Really Were (Garden City: Doubleday, 1977), p.21; Samuel A. Stouffer, Communism, Conformity and Civil Liberties: A Cross-Section of the Nation Speaks Its Mind (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1992), p.178.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Conservative Women's Activism from Anticommunism to the New Christian Right
    Hollins University Hollins Digital Commons Undergraduate Honors Theses Honors Theses 2021 Mothers, Morals, and Godly Motivations: Conservative Women’s Activism from Anticommunism to the New Christian Right Kaitlyn C. Phillips Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.hollins.edu/ughonors Part of the United States History Commons, and the Women's History Commons MOTHERS, MORALS, AND GODLY MOTIVATIONS: CONSERVATIVE WOMEN’S ACTIVISM FROM ANTICOMMUNISM TO THE NEW CHRISTIAN RIGHT A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts Department of History Hollins University May 2021 By Kaitlyn C. Phillips TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: 1 CHAPTER ONE: The Minute Women: Anticommunist Women, Domesticity and Conservative Unity 8 CHAPTER TWO: Phyllis Schlafly: The Privileged Status of Women and Idealized National Identity 20 CHAPTER THREE: Beverly LaHaye: The Evangelical Essentials and Women in the New Christian Right 35 CONCLUSION: 51 BIBLIOGRAPHY: 55 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To start, I want to thank Dr. Nunez for her guidance, care, and wisdom throughout this thesis process and my entire time at Hollins. Your kindness and sense of humor have brightened my days countless times, and when I think of myself as a potential scholar, I hope to be as thoughtful, knowledgeable, and passionate as you are. Additionally, I want to thank Dr. Florio and Dr. Coogan for their time, knowledge, and support. You have helped me in numerous ways and I am incredibly grateful for you both. I want to thank my father, Steven Phillips, for being just as big of a history nerd as I am. Lastly, I want to remember my grandfather Donald Bruaw, who showed me how to love history.
    [Show full text]
  • Ruination Day”
    Woody Guthrie Annual, 4 (2018): Fernandez, “Ruination Day” “Ruination Day”: Gillian Welch, Woody Guthrie, and Disaster Balladry1 Mark F. Fernandez Disasters make great art. In Gillian Welch’s brilliant song cycle, “April the 14th (Part 1)” and “Ruination Day,” the Americana songwriter weaves together three historical disasters with the “tragedy” of a poorly attended punk rock concert. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, and the epic dust storm that took place on what Americans call “Black Sunday” in 1935 all serve as a backdrop to Welch’s ballad, which also revolves around the real scene of a failed punk show that she and musical partner David Rawlings had encountered on one of their earlier tours. The historical disasters in question all coincidentally occurred on the fourteenth day of April. Perhaps even more important, the history of Welch’s “Ruination Day” reveals the important relationship between history and art as well as the enduring relevance of Woody Guthrie’s influence on American songwriting.2 Welch’s ouevre, like Guthrie’s, often nods to history. From the very instruments that she and Rawlings play to the themes in her original songs to the tunes she covers, she displays a keen awareness and reverence for the past. The sonic quality of her recordings, along with her singing and musical style, also echo the past. This historical quality is quite deliberate. Welch and Rawlings play vintage instruments to achieve much of that sound. Welch’s axes are all antiques—her main guitar is a 1956 Gibson J-50.
    [Show full text]
  • 9781134588374.Pdf
    Black Celebrity, Racial Politics, and the Press Shifting understandings and ongoing conversations about race, celebrity, and protest in the twenty-fi rst century call for a closer examination of the evolution of dissent by black celebrities and their reception in the public sphere. This book focuses on the way the mainstream and black press have covered cases of controversial political dissent by African American celeb- rities from Paul Robeson to Kanye West. Jackson considers the following questions: (1) What unique agency is available to celebrities with racialized identities to present critiques of American culture? (2) How have journalists in both the mainstream and black press limited or facilitated this agency through framing? What does this say about the varying role of journalism in American racial politics? (3) How have framing trends regarding these fi gures shifted from the mid-twentieth century to the twenty-fi rst century? Through a series of case studies that also includes Eartha Kitt, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, Sister Souljah, and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Jackson illustrates the shifting public narratives and historical moments that both limit and enable African American celebrities in the wake of making public politicized statements that critique the accepted racial, economic, and mili- tary systems in the United States. Sarah J. Jackson is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University. Her research examines the construction of social identities in national debates about citizenship, inequality, and social change. Jackson’s research has appeared in The International Journal of Press Poli- tics and Feminist Media Studies. Routledge Transformations in Race and Media Series Editors: Robin R.
    [Show full text]
  • Theodore W. (Ted) Allen Papers 1890-2017 (Bulk: 1940-2005) 47 Boxes (64 Linear Feet) Call No.: MS 1021
    Special Collections and University Archives UMass Amherst Libraries Theodore W. (Ted) Allen Papers 1890-2017 (Bulk: 1940-2005) 47 boxes (64 linear feet) Call no.: MS 1021 About SCUA SCUA home Credo digital Scope Overview Series 1. Correspondence Series 2. Writings and speaking Series 3. Research Series 4. Biographical and personal Series 5. Photos and media Series 6. News clippings and Articles Inventory Series 1. Correspondence Series 2. Writings and public speaking Series 3. Research Materials and Notes (partially processed) Series 4. Biographical and personal Series 5. Photos and Media Series 6. News clippings and articles Admin info Download xml version print version (pdf) Read collection overview Theodore W. "Ted" Allen (1919-2005) was an anti-white supremacist, working class intellectual and activist who researched and wrote outside of the academic community for almost seventy years. He developed his pioneering class struggle-based analysis of "white skin privilege" beginning in the mid-1960s; authored the seminal two-volume "The Invention of the White Race" in the 1990s; and in his writings and speaking consistently maintained that the struggle against white supremacy was central to efforts at radical social change in the United States. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Allen grew up in Paintsville, Kentucky and Huntington, West Virginia where he was "proletarianized" by the Great Depression. After hurting his back in the mines, he moved to New York City and taught at the Jefferson School of Social Science, did research with the Labor Research Association, and worked various jobs including factory work, teaching, the post office, and the Brooklyn Public Library.
    [Show full text]
  • Of Paul Robeson 53
    J. Karp: The “Hassidic Chant” of Paul Robeson 53 Performing Black-Jewish Symbiosis: The “Hassidic Chant” of Paul Robeson JONATHAN KARP* On May 9, 1958, the African American singer and political activist Paul Robeson (1898–1976) performed “The Hassidic [sic] Chant of Levi Isaac,” along with a host of spirituals and folk songs, before a devoted assembly of his fans at Carnegie Hall. The “Hassidic Chant,” as Robeson entitled it, is a version of the Kaddish (Memorial Prayer) attributed to the Hasidic rebbe (master), Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev (1740–1810), a piece also known as the “Din Toyre mit Got” (“The Lawsuit with God”). According to tradition, Levi Yizhak had composed the song spontaneously on a Rosh Hashanah as he contemplated the steadfast faith of his people in the face of their ceaseless suffering. He is said to have stood in the synagogue before the open ark where the Torah scrolls reside and issued his complaint directly to God: a gut morgn dir, riboynoy shel oylem; ikh, levi yitzhak ben sarah mi-barditchev, bin gekumen tzu dir mit a din toyre fun dayn folk yisroel. vos host-tu tzu dayn folk yisroel; un vos hos-tu zich ongezetst oyf dayn folk yisroel? A good day to Thee, Lord of the Universe! I, Levi Yitzhak, son of Sarah, from Berditchev, Bring against you a lawsuit on behalf of your People, Israel. What do you have against your People, Israel? Why have your so oppressed your People, Israel?1 After this questioning of divine justice, Levi Yitzhak proceeded to chant the Kaddish in attestation to God’s sovereignty and supremacy.
    [Show full text]
  • SHOULD NEWSPAPERS CRUSADE? Answer: Yes George Chaplin
    ----------------------~----------------------------------------------------------~-~ Ieman• orts October~ 1949 SHOULD NEWSPAPERS CRUSADE? Answer: Yes George Chaplin Turnover Among Newsmen William M. Pinkerton The Guild and Education Norval Neil Luxon The Character of the Newspaper Job Louis M. Lyons V A Dutchman Looks at the U. S. Press Jan Roelof Klinkert A Country Editor's Creed Donald A. Norberg The Story Behind the Story "CBS Views the Press" Seminar on Russia Houstoun Waring Nieman Scrapbook Letters Nieman Notes Nieman Reports is published by the Nieman Alumni Council, elected by former Nieman Fellows at Harvard University. It aims to provide a medium for discussion by newspapermen of problems common t.o their profession. Nine out of ten sub!Scriber·S to Nieman Reports and very many of its contributors are not themselves former Nieman Fellows but share a belief in the purpose of the Nieman Foundation "to promote and elevate standards of journalism in the U. S." NIEMAN REPORTS and receptions given by large corporations, and under the heading, "They Made It Possible" on the NEA programs, 22 firms and organizations were thanked for "making this con­ NiemanReports vention a success." Seventeen hosts were business concerns and organizations, including General Motors, the United States Brewers Foundation, Ford Motors, Geneva (U. S.) Steel, Kennecott Copper and the Utah Manufacturers Asso­ Nieman Reports is published by the Nieman Alumni ciation. Geneva Steel and Kennecott have large operations, Council: John MeL. Clark, Claremont, N. H.; Paul L. so like the other Utah companies they could legitimately Evans, Mitchell, S. D.; Lawrence A. Fernsworth, New play host to Utah visitors. York City; Thomas H.
    [Show full text]
  • Holt Atherton Special Collections Ms4: Brubeck Collection
    HOLT ATHERTON SPECIAL COLLECTIONS MS4: BRUBECK COLLECTION SERIES 1: PAPERS SUBSERIES E: CLIPPINGS BOX 3a : REVIEWS, 1940s-1961 1.E.3.1: REVIEWS, 1940s a- “Jazz Does Campus Comeback but in new Guise it’s a ‘Combo,’” Oakland Tribune, 3-24-47 b- Jack Egan. “Egan finds jury…,” Down Beat, 9-10-47 c- “Local boys draw comment,” <n.s.> [Chicago], 12-1-48 d- Edward Arnow. “Brubeck recital is well-received,” Stockton Record, 1-18-49 e- Don Roessner. “Jazz meets J.S. Bach in the Bay Region,” SF Chronicle, 2- 13-49 f- Robert McCary. “Jazz ensemble in first SF appearance,” SF Chronicle, 3-6- 49 g- Clifford Gessler. “Snap, skill mark UC jazz concert,” <n.s.> [Berkeley CA], n.d. [4-49] h- “Record Reviews---DB Trio on Coronet,” Metronome, 9-49, pg. 31 i- Keith Jones. “Exciting and competent, says this critic,” Daily Californian, 12- 6-49 j- Kenneth Wastell. “Letters to the editor,” Daily Californian, 12-8-49 k- Dick Stewart. “Letters to the editor,” Daily Californian, 12-9-49 l- Ken Wales. “Letters to the editor,” Daily Californian, 12-14-49 m- “Record Reviews: The Month’s best [DB Trio on Coronet],” Metronome, Dec. 1949 n- “Brubeck Sounds Good” - 1949 o- Ralph J. Gleason, “Local Units Give Frisco Plenty to Shout About,” Down Beat, [1949?] 1.E.3.2: REVIEWS, 1950 a- “Record Reviews: Dave Brubeck Trio,” Down Beat, 1-27-50 b- Bill Greer, "A Farewell to Measure from Bach to Bop," The Crossroads, January 1950, Pg. 13 c- Keith Jones. “Dave Brubeck,” Bay Bop, [San Francisco] 2-15-50 d- “Poetic License in Jazz: Brubeck drops in on symphony forum, demonstrates style with Bach-flavored bop,” The Daily Californian, 2-27-50 e- Barry Ulanov.
    [Show full text]
  • Guide to State Statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection
    U.S. CAPITOL VISITOR CENTER GUide To STATe STATUes iN The NATioNAl STATUArY HAll CollecTioN CVC 19-107 Edition V Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii addresses a group of high school students gathered in front of the statue of King Kamehameha in the Capitol Visitor Center. TOM FONTANA U.S. CAPITOL VISITOR CENTER GUide To STATe STATUes iN The NATioNAl STATUArY HAll CollecTioN STATE PAGE STATE PAGE Alabama . 3 Montana . .28 Alaska . 4 Nebraska . .29 Arizona . .5 Nevada . 30 Arkansas . 6 New Hampshire . .31 California . .7 New Jersey . 32 Colorado . 8 New Mexico . 33 Connecticut . 9 New York . .34 Delaware . .10 North Carolina . 35 Florida . .11 North Dakota . .36 Georgia . 12 Ohio . 37 Hawaii . .13 Oklahoma . 38 Idaho . 14 Oregon . 39 Illinois . .15 Pennsylvania . 40 Indiana . 16 Rhode Island . 41 Iowa . .17 South Carolina . 42 Kansas . .18 South Dakota . .43 Kentucky . .19 Tennessee . 44 Louisiana . .20 Texas . 45 Maine . .21 Utah . 46 Maryland . .22 Vermont . .47 Massachusetts . .23 Virginia . 48 Michigan . .24 Washington . .49 Minnesota . 25 West Virginia . 50 Mississippi . 26 Wisconsin . 51 Missouri . .27 Wyoming . .52 Statue photography by Architect of the Capitol The Guide to State Statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection is available as a free mobile app via the iTunes app store or Google play. 2 GUIDE TO STATE STATUES IN THE NATIONAL STATUARY HALL COLLECTION U.S. CAPITOL VISITOR CENTER AlabaMa he National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol is comprised of statues donated by individual states to honor persons notable in their history. The entire collection now consists of 100 statues contributed by 50 states.
    [Show full text]
  • Woody Guthrie and the Writing of “Balladsongs” Mark F
    ISSN 2053-8804 Woody Guthrie Annual, 3 (2017): Fernandez: Guthrie and the Writing of “Balladsongs” “The Only Way That I Could Cry”: Woody Guthrie and the Writing of “Balladsongs” ! !Mark F. Fernandez Woody Guthrie wrote about everything. He even coined a motto about it at the end of his most famous lyric sheet: “All you can write is what you see.”1 And he saw just about everything there was to see of the mid-twentieth-century American experience. His famous travels took him throughout most of the then forty-eight states, and like so many Americans of his day, World War II acquainted him with life on the high seas, the coasts of Africa, and parts of Europe. As he wrote about the things he saw and the causes he came to embrace, Guthrie developed an approach to the songwriting process that he shared with anyone who would listen and even some that probably did not want his advice at all. That approach has gone on to influence generations of songwriters ever since — their legion is often dubbed “Woody’s Children.” Peers like Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman, who would go on to form the influential folk/pop group The Weavers, recorded Woody’s songs, emulated his songwriting process in their own work, and helped spark a “folk revival” that energized the 1950s and 60s. Young entertainers like Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and Bob Dylan sought out and copied Guthrie as they developed their own craft. More recently, artists like Billy Bragg, Jay Farrar, and Jonatha Brooke have counted Guthrie as a major influence and have even adapted his unpublished lyrics in some of their recordings as well as incorporating his “all you can write is what you see” mentality into their own creative processes.
    [Show full text]
  • Media 2070: an Invitation to Dream up Media Reparations
    An Invitation to Dream Up Media Reparations AN INVITATION TO DREAM UP MEDIA REPARATIONS Collaborators: Joseph Torres Alicia Bell Collette Watson Tauhid Chappell Diamond Hardiman Christina Pierce a project of Free Press 2 WWW.MEDIA2070.ORG CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 9 I. A Day at the Beach 13 II. Media 2070: An Invitation to Dream 18 III. Modern Calls for Reparations for Slavery 19 IV. The Case for Media Reparations 24 V. How the Media Profited from and Participated in Slavery 26 VI. The Power of Acknowledging and Apologizing 29 VII. Government Moves to Suppress Black Journalism 40 VIII. Black People Fight to Tell Our Stories in the Jim Crow Era 43 IX. Media Are the Instruments of a White Power Structure 50 X. The Struggle to Integrate Media 52 XI. How Public Policy Has Entrenched Anti-Blackness in the Media 56 XII. White Media Power and the Trump Feeding Frenzy 58 XIII. Media Racism from the Newsroom to the Boardroom 62 XIV. 2020: A Global Reckoning on Race 66 X V. Upending White Supremacy in Newsrooms 70 XVI. Are Newsrooms Ready to Make Things Right? 77 XVII. The Struggles of Black Media Resistance 80 XVIII. Black Activists Confront Online Gatekeepers 83 XIX. Media Reparations Are Necessary to Our Nation’s Future 90 XX. Making Media Reparations Real 95 Epilogue 97 About Team Media 2070 98 Definitions 99 #MEDIA2070 3 TRIGGER WARNING There are numerous stories in this essay that explore the harms the news media have inflicted on the Black community. While these stories may be difficult or painful to read, they are not widely known, and they need to be.
    [Show full text]
  • The Roots of Post-Racial Neoliberalism in Blacklist Era Hollywood
    The Roots of Post-Racial Neoliberalism in Blacklist Era Hollywood A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Andrew Paul IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Lary May, Tracey Deutsch March 2014 © Andrew Paul 2014 Acknowledgements Writing this dissertation would not have been possible without the support of countless others. First, I acknowledge the generosity of my dissertation committee. My advisors, Lary May and Tracey Deutsch offered enthusiastic guidance, criticism, and support. Lary’s own contributions to the historiography of the blacklist were second in value only to his personal attention to my work, and his questions yielded important research leads. Tracey helped me to think across sub-fields and pushed me to improve my writing. Both of them encouraged me to take intellectual risks and to make bold claims and interventions. Elaine Tyler May, Riv-Ellen Prell, and Malinda Lindquist all shaped my development as a scholar as well. With thoughtful and critical attention to my writing, they challenged me to clarify my ideas and helped me to see how my work was entering different conversations, and how it might stand to enter others. It was a privilege to be able to discuss my ideas with this committee. I was awarded generous financial sums from the University of Minnesota’s Harold Leonard Memorial Film Studies Fellowship and the University of Minnesota Foundation, which allowed me travel to archives in California, Wisconsin, and New York. In these locales, at the Charles Young Research Library at the University of California Los Angeles, the Margaret Herrick Library and the Paley Center for Media, both located in Beverly Hills, the Wisconsin State Historical Society in Madison, and at the Center for Jewish History in New York City, numerous archivists assisted me in my work., and for this I owe them my gratitude.
    [Show full text]
  • Abner Diamond Teaches Communications at the Fashion Insitute of Technology in New York. He Canvassed Door-To-Door for Marcantoni
    Abner Diamond teaches communications at the Fashion Insitute of Technology in New York. He canvassed door-to-door for Marcantonio, and this woodcut was inspired by the graphic artists of Mexico. Rebel in the House The Life and Times of Vito Marcantonio JOHN J. SIMON You only live once and it is best to live one’s life with one’s con- science rather than to temporize or accept with silence those things one believes to be against the interests of one’s people and one’s nation. —Vito Marcantonio in Congress June 27, 1950, the only Congressional voice opposed to U.S. intervention in the Korean War. Vito Marcantonio was the most consequential radical politician in the United States in the twentieth century. Elected to Congress from New York’s ethnically Italian and Puerto Rican East Harlem slums, Marcantonio, in his time, held office longer than any other third-party radical, serving seven terms from 1934 to 1950. Colorful and controver- sial, Marcantonio captured national prominence as a powerful orator and brilliant parliamentarian. Often allied with the U.S. Communist Party (CP), he was an advocate of civil rights, civil liberties, labor unions, and Puerto Rican independence. He supported social security and unemployment legislation for what later was called a “living wage” standard. And he annually introduced anti-lynching and anti–poll tax bills a decade before it became respectable. He also opposed the House Un-American Activities Committee, redbaiting, and antisemitism, and fought for the rights of the foreign born. He was a bold outspoken opponent of U.S.
    [Show full text]