Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2003 Reporting the movement in black and white: the Emmett iT ll lynching and the Montgomery bus boycott John Craig Flournoy Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Mass Communication Commons Recommended Citation Flournoy, John Craig, "Reporting the movement in black and white: the Emmett iT ll lynching and the Montgomery bus boycott" (2003). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3023. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3023 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. REPORTING THE MOVEMENT IN BLACK AND WHITE: THE EMMETT TILL LYNCHING AND THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Manship School of Mass Communication By Craig Flournoy B.A., University of New Orleans, 1975 M.A., Southern Methodist University, 1986 August 2003 Acknowledgements The researcher would like to thank several members of the faculty of the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University for their help and inspiration in preparing this dissertation. Dr. Ralph Izard, who chaired the researcher’s dissertation committee, has been steady, tough and wise. In other words, Dr. Izard is that unique creature—a good boss. The other three members of the dissertation committee each made special contributions. Dr. Renita Coleman did her best to rid the dissertation of flabby vagueness and replace it with concrete analysis. Where this occurs, she is primarily responsible. Dr. Laura Lindsay taught the researcher to see civil rights leaders as advocates rather than saints, an invaluable lesson for anyone aspiring to do social science. Dr. Wayne Parent was a treasure trove of knowledge regarding politics, the black experience and the nexus between the two. He also reminded the researcher that good writing and good social science are not mutually exclusive. Given their steady hands and sharp humor, all four would make fine godparents. The researcher also would like to thank Dr. Jack Hamilton, the dean of the Manship School. It was his vision that created the Manship School doctoral program. He also was primarily responsible for raising the money that provided the researcher with a fellowship so that he could give up his day job as a reporter. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………………ii List of Tables………………………………………………………………………...…...iv List of Illustrations………………………………………………………………………...v Abstract……………………………………………………………………………….…..vi Chapter 1. Introduction……...………………………………………………………………...1 2. Literature Review………. ..……………………………………………………….8 3. Theory and Methodology…………..……………….……………………………32 4. Invisible Criminals: Mainstream Media Coverage of Black Americans, 1900-1950………………….50 5. Covering a Mississippi Murder Trial: The Emmett Till Lynching………...…………………………………………..…81 6. Covering a Mass Protest in Alabama: The Montgomery Bus Boycott…………………..……………………………...110 7. Summary and Conclusions………………………………..……………………153 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………196 Vita..…………………………………………………………………………………....213 iii List of Tables 1. New York Times Articles about the Emmett Till Case (listed chronologically)……………………………………………………………..155 2. Persons Quoted in New York Times about the Till Case by Race (with Findings)…..…………………………………………….…………..157 3. Birmingham World Articles about the Emmett Till Case (listed chronologically)……………………………………………………………..159 4. Persons Quoted in Birmingham World about the Till Case by Race (with Findings)…………………………………………………………….160 5. Persons Quoted in New York Times about the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Race (with Findings)…………………………………………………………….168 6. Persons Quoted in Birmingham World about the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Race (with Findings)………….…………………………………………………171 iv List of Illustrations 1. Initial Stories in the New York Times and the Birmingham World on the Till Case (September 2, 1955)………………………………………………. 86 2. Photograph in the September 15, 1955 Issue of Jet magazine Showing Emmett Till’s Mutilated Head……………………………………………..93 3. Map of the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta………………………………………………...96 4. Photograph from October 3, 1955 issue of Life magazine Showing J.W. Milam Playing with his Sons during Murder Trial……………………………102 5. Artist’s Illustration in Look magazine Showing Emmett Till Moments After Being Shot by J.W. Milam (January 24, 1956)………………………………107 6. Initial Story in the New York Times on the Montgomery Bus Boycott (December 6, 1955) ………………………………………….…………………….118 7. Initial Stories in the Birmingham World on the Montgomery Bus Boycott (December 13, 1955)……………………………………………………………….119 8. The First Photograph Published by the New York Times in its Coverage of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (January 12, 1956)………………………………128 9. Opening of February 9, 1956 Jet Story on the Montgomery Bus Boycott…………136 10. Photograph from Life Magazine’s Coverage of the Bus Boycott (March 5, 1956)…………………………………………………………………….140 11. Front Page Stories in the New York Times Reporting that the Buses in Montgomery Had Been Desegregated (April 24, 1956 and April 25, 1956)……….144 v Abstract This dissertation examines media coverage of two events in the Civil Rights Movement—the lynching of Emmett Till in 1955 and the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955-56. The study focuses on three publications aimed primarily at white audiences (Life, Look and the New York Times) and two aimed primarily at black audiences (the Birmingham World and Jet). The dissertation seeks to answer several questions. How did mainstream news organizations cover black Americans in the decades prior to the 1950s? In reporting on the Till murder case and the Montgomery bus boycott, did coverage by mainstream news organizations change? If so, in what ways? And, most important, which news organizations did the best job covering the Till murder case and the Montgomery bus boycott? The researcher defined best as those publications that quoted a diversity of sources, provided historical context and identified the central problem while following accepted journalistic routines such as attribution and balance. The researcher examined every story and photograph published by the five news organizations about the Till lynching and the Montgomery bus boycott. The researcher used textual analysis as the primary methodology. The study also incorporated two mass communication theories—framing and cultural studies. The dissertation found that the black-oriented publications produced the most accomplished journalistic coverage by providing a greater range of sources, broader context, more depth and a clear statement of the central problem. The study showed that vi during the first half of the twentieth century, mainstream news organizations largely ignored blacks or presented them as criminals. But this changed during the Till murder case and the bus boycott. The dissertation found that in reporting on these events, Life, Look and the New York Times adopted new frames—first presenting blacks as the innocent victims of deadly racial hatred and later as nonviolent protestors. These findings challenge the widely held opinion that the New York Times provides the best journalistic source of information on key historical events. This study also challenges the widespread view that the black press is a “fighting” press that uses its news columns to advance a political agenda. vii Chapter 1: Introduction This dissertation will examine media coverage of the 1955 Emmett Till murder case and the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott, two events that helped launch the Civil Rights Movement. A number of scholars have suggested the movement had a more profound impact on American life than any other social protest of the twentieth century.1 Prior to the movement, Southern blacks lived in an apartheid society, one that stripped them of their right to vote, relegated them to inferior schools and proscribed their movements in virtually all public spaces.2 Underlying this state-sanctioned system of segregation was the threat of violence against anyone who challenged it, a threat that the Ku Klux Klan and other white terror groups enforced with the rope, the razor and the bomb.3 The movement destroyed the Jim Crow system of race relations. Lynching was no longer tolerated. Congress outlawed segregation in public accommodations in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. One year later, lawmakers ensured that southern blacks would be enfranchised through the Voting Rights Act of 1965.4 1 John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947): 623-624; Fred Powledge, Free at Last? The Civil Rights Movement and the People Who Made It (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1991): xx. 2 Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, Vols. I & II (New York: Random House, 1944). 3 In Mississippi whites lynched 539 black Americans between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the movement. See Charles M. Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition