Book Report -" Watching Jim Crow"

In his book on how Mississippi TV programming in the 50’s and 60’s played a huge part in the oppression of African-Americans and keeping the segregationist status quo. Classen combines written documentation with the oral history and memories of the residents of Jackson, Mississippi in an effort to show how black voices have been suppressed and marginalized in the examination of the history. Most of the previous history books on this era rely on documented sources, which, Classen points out, are biased in and of themselves, since they represent what was acceptable to be documented, which didn’t include many black sources.
Classen notes, “In the moments of white terrorism and surveillance, the transience of oral communication was one of its tactical strengths. ‘Unofficial,’ unwritten oral communications, were at the center of civil rights interventions.”(140), so oral reports and history was all the black community could use. In the trials against the broadcasting networks, testimony from African-Americans were ignored and manipulated to keep the status quo of segregationist and so the government could avoid the whole “race issue”. Legal courts reduced the oral history and testimony of the black people in Mississippi. “Various parts of the whole, stripped of their historical context and definitions, were examined through the technically adjusted microscope of administrative procedure.” (133) This process marginalized the voices of the black communities and limited the progress of the civil rights movement.
Besides the limiting of black voices, the interviews highlight the interconnectiveness of media representation and real life tensions and social constructs. By limiting the portrayals of blacks on TV, the view that people get of blacks is defined by the people who control what is shown, which is white people. The fact that the white broadcasters were so invested in their own culture of segregation made them very paranoid. One of the most surprising things I learned from the book was the network of spies and “terrorist” activities that the Council and other white supremacists were using to keep the status quo. “Many within Jackson, both white and black, did not know whom they could fully trust. Several black Jacksonians told me personal stories of white terroristic responses to those within their family and circle of friends.”(153) This atmosphere of fear was instrumental in limiting black power.
Classen also links the past and the present, showing how things have not changed much. Even the black owned station does not represent black interests so much as white in the present. “Kirksey was, and remains, concerned about the ways in which black Mississippians did, and continue to, ‘sell out’ to white interests.”(167) These interviews make it clear that the struggle for equal representation in the media is not over and that there are still many changes to be made.