Book Review: Watching Jim Crow

Greer Grenley
Book Review #2: Watching Jim Crow
10/6/08
Prof. Delmont

Although the end of the 1950’s and the beginning of the 1960’s marked a time of social changes in the United States, one southern state tried hard to ignore the Federal Laws that were giving African Americans more civil rights, and instead protested against these changes by forming anti-integration groups that used propaganda in the media to display their cause of keeping African Americans off of broadcast television.
In his book “Watching Jim Crow: The Struggles Over Mississippi TV, 1955-1969”, Steven D. Classen discusses the pro-segregation groups that controlled the Mississippi television networks in the 1950’s who actively oppressed African Americans and prevented them from being represented on broadcast news and television programs. Classen gives a brief overview of early Jackson broadcasting and then later links the idea of Consumerism with race and civil rights in America in the 1960’s. He also details the history of groups like the Citizens’ Council and their desire to continue the oppression of African Americans in Mississippi through Jackson broadcasts like WLBT.
In the first chapter, Classen introduces what was going on in Mississippi in the 1950’s in order to supply context. Although 1954’s Brown vs. Board of Education promised integration in schools, Mississippi’s Citizen Council formed with hopes of continuing segregation. “By March 1955, 167 local Citizens’ Councils were reported in Mississippi, loosely affiliated into a state organization” (30). White supremacist groups saw a problem with media covering certain aspects of the news like the Emmett Till trial, which was the murder of a 14-year old African American boy, and groups like the Citizens’ Council used propaganda to try to eliminate the coverage of these news stories. In 1963, WLBT aired a propaganda show “The American Revolution of 1963”, stating that promoting civil rights is like promoting consumer rights.
Through the use of oral histories, Classen aims to showcase those who protested these broadcast networks and who, eventually, were successful in creating a voice for African Americans in the media. “The stations never faced a sustained direct-action campaign, although activists such as Evers, Henry, and Smith had long complained about station programming and had petitioned for change” (59). He interviews students living in Jackson, those who worked for programs like WLBT, and others that are still living in this area and who still constantly face oppression from white supremacists. By using oral histories from the past and also from today, he aims to prove that racism still exists, and that although there were those who were successful in getting the media to represent African Americans, there are still problems today and not a lot has changed.
Classen’s account of African Americans’ fight for equal representation among television networks is strong; he provides social and historical context as well as introduces important figures during this time frame who were successful in their protests for civil rights. He provides information on specific laws to provide context as to where the backlash in Mississippi stemmed from, introduces the history of networks like WLBT, and moves on to the protests of the 1960’s that eventually led to successful representation of African Americans in the media. Although Classen offers a lot of important information, I would say that he takes on too much in this book. It would be helpful to provide more history and context of important people during this time period (like Evers) instead of quickly brushing over them in order to move on to the next area. Picking a more specific focus would allow him the opportunity to concentrate on the aspects of the 1950’s and 1960’s that he only briefly touches on.