views and research

Commercial Appeal

The views taken in writing during the 1960’s civil Rights movement

In the time period spanning from the early 1960’s to April of 1968 the civil rights movement was under an epic change. Many people where actually starting to challenge their rights at any cost. During this time of violence and social unrest many southern papers were thrust full on into this epic chain of events. One of these papers was the Commercial Appeal out of Memphis, Tennessee. The Commercial Appeal covered the sanitation strikes in Memphis and was also there when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It also covered many early civil rights events in Memphis during the time. Being a news medium for the south the commercial appeal had to choose how they would portray many of these events and how they would be perceived by their readership.

In looking into past newspaper from the 1950’s a constant trend was occurring involving newspapers keeping African Americans out of the public eye, unless they were in trouble. Many of these earlier press releases and news stories depicted the African American society as almost non-existent and if you were to find a story if would be in the back of a newspaper in the smallest print allowed. We see a huge shift in newspaper writing from the 1950’s to 1960’s as well. Many papers started to evolve and shift their writing to keep up with the changing times, although still referred to as Negroes, African American’s gained a little more dignity by having their names mentioned and quotes used in a newspaper and being able to have their voices heard for once. The 1960’s was a time when African Americans quotes were used to have their voices heard in stories, mainly by the newspapers.

A newspaper basis itself on credibility and without that, its most basic structure, the newspaper loses its readership as well as its ethical nature to report the topics without harm or malice towards others. The size of the medium outlet also has a lot to do with this. Many small town papers in bigger mediums chose to either write with a neutral view or a positive view of civil rights events and African American as a whole.

Newspapers in the south can be modeled after a see-saw in the way that some newspapers are positive while others where negative and sometime they would slowly change sides. Some papers would print news happening in African American society on the pages they should be while other papers would sway the truth or print big stories about African Americans in the very back in the smallest print allowed. A certain Instance that occurred happened in Jackson Mississippi. The Jackson Sun reluctantly sent a reporter to report on students who were protesting their right to vote in the presidential election. The aftermath saw 144 students put into jail. Was their story allowed to be printed on the front page? Absolutely not . The southern way that had been around for so long was swaying papers to write in a more reserved manor. While some papers where just afraid of the violence that could turn on them if reporting stories. The Jackson Sun would come out later and say that by playing down big civil rights events it would create a better transition into these new changing times. This was the mood of many of the southern papers.

Research Questions

Research questions were put together to research 10 articles published in Memphis, Tennessee newspaper The Commercial Appeal. Through these five questions one can determine the attitude of the paper towards the articles. The articles were taken from April 1, 1968-April 6, 1968 the events covering sanitation strikes up until the death of Martin Luther King Jr. death.