Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America (University of Illinois Press, 2021)

Sid Bedingfield, Associate Professor, Hubbard School of Journalism, University of Minnesota

Kathy Roberts Forde, Professor, Journalism Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Describe the focus of your book.

KF: Journalism and Jim Crow is the first extended work to document the role of the white press in building white supremacist political economies and social orders in the New South—and the critical role of the Black press in fiercely resisting—from the end of Reconstruction through the first decades of the twentieth century. The tragic outcomes of this history are still with us and demand our attention.

SB: The book takes a fresh look at the rise of Jim Crow in the South by focusing on newspapers as institutions of power within their communities. The publishers and editors who ran these newspapers used the soft power of public discourse to undermine the Reconstruction project and spread the ideology of white supremacy in post-Civil War South. But they exerted hard power, too. They were political actors who worked closely with other institutions of power – the Democratic Party, obviously – but also with the railroads, mining companies, and other industries eager to take advantage of cheap labor in the emerging New South.  

KF: These editors and publishers planned political campaigns to wrest power from Black Republicans, white populists, and bi-racial coalitions. They spread anti-Black, anti-democratic disinformation and propaganda. And they even used the tools of racial terror—racial massacres, lynching, convict leasing—to build a near total world of white supremacy where Black Southerners were not able to vote, serve on juries, hold public office, receive equitable public education, and pursue economic opportunity without white sufferance.

SB: The Black press fought back — even in the South, where Black journalists worked under the constant threat of violence. But by the 1870s, white public opinion in the North, led by the elite white press, had turned against the Reconstruction project. And Black voices that challenged Jim Crow and struggled to build a pluralist democracy were overwhelmed by the popularity of the white supremacy ideology nationwide.

How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?

KF: I did an independent study with an undergraduate student on the connections between the convict leasing system and the white press in the South, research that eventually led to the book chapter on Henry Flagler’s use of newspapers to control public information about his labor practices used to turn Florida into a tourist empire. Sid and I always share our research, and we began to piece together instance after instance of white newspaper leaders using their power to create anti-Black, anti-democratic systems and policies, often using violence.

SB: My first book, Newspaper Wars, argued that Black and White newspapers had exerted more political influence in the struggle over civil rights in the mid-twentieth century that had been previously acknowledged. I had seen how the white, daily press had collaborated with politicians and business leaders in to resist Black equality. Kathy’s research on Flagler and his effort to control the press in Florida resonated with me immediately. At the same time, I was pleased to see the historians Julian Zelizer and Bruce Shulman, in their 2018 book, call for scholars to take mass media outlets more seriously as historical actors capable of shaping political outcomes. The influence of Fox News and its inextricable link to right-wing politics was clearly opening eyes about the substantive role mass media has played in American politics.

KF: We thought about writing the book ourselves, but there was just too much territory to cover and the subject felt urgent and timely. So we asked other historians to join us, and we all worked very closely together to develop the book’s themes and arguments. 

SB: Recruiting the contributors was one of the most satisfying aspects of the project. For example, I had always respected the book Right to Ride, Blair Kelley’s study of Black resistance to Jim Crow, but I had not met her. I reached out, and she grasped our concept immediately. As it turns out, we share a mentor, historian Patricia Sullivan. Her research on Black journalist J. Max Barber and the Atlanta riots of 1906 provides a poignant closing chapter in our book. 

KF: We held a book symposium at the Hubbard School at UMN, where Sid is on the faculty, and Blair suggested the book needed a chapter devoted to the Black press and its calling out of Grady and the white press in the New South project. Our group immediately thought of D’Weston Haywood, whom I had met a few years earlier at the Schomburg Center when he was finalizing research for his book Let Us Make Men: The Twentieth-Century Black Press and a Manly Vision for Racial Advancement. He loved the project and joined us.

What archives or research materials did you use? 

SB: I returned to some old haunts in South Carolina — the Ben Tillman Papers at Clemson University, the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina, and the South Carolina Historical Society archives in Charleston. I also made my first trip to the Alabama Department of Archives and History, the nation’s first publicly funded independent state archives agency (as they are quick to point out). I snuck in just before the pandemic hit and spent time in the papers of former Montgomery Advertiser editor William Wallace Screws and several other political figures from the period. Unfortunately, one of our greatest gaps in historical evidence concerns the populist press in the South. This project has driven home to me the importance of the white and Black populist movements in the in the1880s and 90s.There were hundreds of colorful populist newspapers in Alabama and across the South at the time, but the overwhelming majority left no archival trace at all. It is a tragic loss.

KF: I worked in the Henry Flagler Papers at the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, the Henry W. Grady Papers at Emory’s Rose Library, and the Joseph E. Brown Papers and the Alfred H. Colquitt Papers at UGA’s Hargrett Library. I consulted various books and materials at the Atlanta History Center. Bryan Bowman, who co-authored the Flagler/Florida chapter with me, and I did a very deep dive into the expansive Justice Department Peonage Files. When he was still an ungraduated student, Bryan took an independent trip to Jacksonville to work in the state convict lease records and microfilm of historical Jacksonville newspapers. Of course, I analyzed a massive amount of press material from the period, along with legislative records and U.S. congressional records. I also read across an incredibly broad range of historiography, digging into footnotes for important breadcrumbs to follow.

How does your book relate to journalism history? How is it relevant to the present?

KF: We hope the broad public, teachers, students, and journalists will read Journalism and Jim Crow and learn about the importance of the press in political, social, and economic conflict and change in the past and in our own moment. Much is at stake. Journalists and news leaders today need to understand how white power and white normativity operate in their own newsrooms. We hope journalists across the country will discuss and learn from the ugly historical truth Journalism and Jim Crow lays bare: white journalists and mainstream journalism have too often served anti-Black, anti-democratic political purposes even as they claimed to be impartial, neutral, and objective.

SB: Kathy sums it well. I’ll just add this: I believe Fitz Brundage’s piece on lynching and the white southern press should be required reading in every newsroom and journalism school. His argument that lynching and white southern journalism were constitutive of one another is powerful and nuanced. It should be taught in classrooms nationwide.

What advice do you have for other historians that are working or starting projects?

SB: I’m not sure this applies to every project, but the impact of the symposium we held early in fall 2019 was a revelation to me. Kathy proposed we gather contributors to discuss the book. It would be costly, and I was initially skeptical. But I must say – the all-day symposium at the Hubbard School in Minneapolis moved the project forward in substantive and unexpected ways. The back-and-forth between contributors – and even some non-contributors like Alex Lichtenstein and Douglas Blackmon – enhanced the final product significantly. I have to thank the top brass at the Hubbard School and the Department of Journalism at UMass-Amherst for making it possible.

KF: Work with smart, generous partners—like Sid and everyone else on this project–who challenge you and do careful, rigorous work. And look for meaningful empty spaces in the historical record.

Media Relations and the Modern First Lady: From Jacqueline Kennedy to Melania Trump (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020)

Each chapter analyzes the relationship between their first lady and the media, the role played by her press secretary and communications staff in cultivating this relationship, examples of the first lady’s media coverage, and an assessment of how successful the first lady and her staff were in communicating their message through the media to the public. The book also includes a chapter by Maurine Beasley that provides an overview of how presidential wives handled the media before the role of first lady press secretary formalized. My introduction establishes the framework for the collection while Alison Novak’s conclusion summarizes the keys to successful media relations.

How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?

My primary research focus has been on media coverage of presidential spouses. My first book, First Ladies and the Fourth Estate: Press Framing of Presidential Wives (2008), looked at newspaper and magazine coverage of 20^th century first ladies from a feminist rhetorical perspective, which merged my professional background as a journalist with my academic training as a media historian and rhetorical critic. When I teach my Political Communication course at Quinnipiac University, I do so from a strategic communication perspective. This book project brought together my research and teaching interests, offering me a chance to explore how the strategic communication tactics of first ladies and their staffs impacted their media coverage.

I was also inspired by the memoir of Lady Bird Johnson’s press secretary, Liz Carpenter. I think Ruffles and Flourishes is one of the best books about the inner workings of a presidential administration. Carpenter and Johnson set the standard for first lady press relations. They recognized that establishing a good working relationship with reporters would result in largely positive media coverage. While I’ve written about Johnson’s media relations, there’s very little scholarship on other first ladies. So, this book was an attempt to fill that gap in the literature.   

What archives or research materials did you use? 

The contributors based their analyses of each first lady’s communication strategy on a variety of sources. The presidential libraries were tremendous resources. Some of the archival documents examined included press releases, speech texts, press conference transcripts, memoranda, and notes detailing how the first lady and her staff handled various events and topics. Meanwhile, the oral histories and memoirs of first ladies and their press secretaries detailed how these women assessed their media relations efforts and the resulting press coverage, while books by White House reporters offered journalists’ perspectives on covering first ladies. For some of the chapters, authors interviewed former White House staffers and reporters. I was fortunate to have a few contributors with first-hand experience working with Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, and Nancy Reagan. Examples of media coverage – newspaper and magazine articles, transcripts, and video footage of first lady media appearances – were also examined. Finally, these primary sources were supported with information from books and articles that provided additional insight into the relationship between first ladies, their staffs, and members of the media. I was incredibly impressed with the amount of research we managed to pack into this book.

How does your book relate to journalism history? How is it relevant to the present?

I think public relations history is an important part of journalism history, but it’s often treated as its own specialty area. We need more studies that examine the interplay between PR practitioners, journalists, and public figures. In this project, we argue that there is a lot we can learn about media relations, rhetorical strategies, message construction, and image management from looking the communication tactics of first ladies and their press secretaries. There are also interesting gender dynamics to be explored, including the relationships between first ladies, their press secretaries (all but one was female), and the reporters (historically women) who cover the East Wing and how media coverage of presidential spouses highlights shifting social views on gender roles. Finally, first lady media relations reflect how political figures, public relations practitioners, and media professionals have responded to changes in the media industry, including the emergence of new communication outlets reaching audiences interested in politics. For example, Shaniece Bickham’s chapter examines how Michelle Obama and her team leveraged television appearances and social media to control their messaging, which was a very effective strategy.

What advice do you have for other historians that are working on or starting book projects?

My biggest takeaway from this project is that you don’t always need to do it all yourself. While our quantitative colleagues are used to working in teams, we historians tend to toil alone in the archives. I initially wanted to do this as a solo authored book but I knew I didn’t have the time or resources to do the research necessary. So, I shifted to the idea of an edited collection, which ended up being the best decision. My contributors brought such an incredible wealth of knowledge, experience, and passion to each of their chapters. It would have taken me years to compile the impressive amount of research my team was able to do in less than a year. I also enjoyed being an editor and working with each of the authors to shape their chapters. It was a different challenge from being an author, leaving me with a greater respect for scholars willing to lead a project from start to finish. The book is still my vision, but it was truly a team effort and a much better product than if I’d written it on my own. Since completing this project, I’ve done two co-authored chapters and I’m currently working on a third. In the past I was always hesitant to write with someone else, but thanks to the book project, I’ve learned how rewarding collaboration can be.     

Newspaper Fashion Editors in the 1950s and 60s: Women Writers of the Runway (Palgrave, 2021)

This book explores the complexity of the sections and the reporting the women did. Fashion editors worked in the women’s pages of newspapers. When the women’s pages turned into lifestyle sections, many fashion editor positions were largely eliminated at metropolitan newspapers. But prior to the loss of the women’s pages, the post-World War II years through the early 1970s were considered the Golden Era.

Fashion editors pulled wire copy, interviewed local women about their fashion choices, and visited local stores to see what was available. They also traveled to national and international fashion shows, interviewed designers, and offered their opinions on trends. Many of them also served as beauty editors – writing about new products, weight loss options, and the popular hairstyles. The editors interacted with each other and were able to network at a time when they were usually excluded from journalism organizations. Most fashion editors stayed in their position at their newspapers for many years and became experts on what their readers were interested in.

How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?

Despite the importance of clothing as an industry and in a person’s individual life, scholarship on newspaper fashion reporting is lacking. Even the more recent research on women in journalism has ignored the traditional women’s section reporting, focusing more on women whose work reached the front pages of newspapers. Yet, areas like fashion journalism were where women were making their mark for decades. When it came to fashion journalism beginning in those post-World War II years, fashion editors held dominant positions. They chronicled the fashions worn in professional and personal worlds and in doing so served as social critics. They also promoted the work of American designers at a changing time in the business as designers became household names.

What archives or research materials did you use? 

Much of the material for the book came from archives and oral histories. One of the most helpful archives was the National Women and Media Collection (NWMC) in Missouri, especially the Penney-Missouri Award papers. The editors who won the annual fashion award wrote letters back and forth to the director of the awards. These letters revealed how the women covered fashion in their communities and at their newspapers. These papers also included speeches given by several of the fashion editors, which revealed their views on fashion and journalism. Marjorie Paxson, who helped establish the NWMC archive, also donated papers that led to many fashion clips from the Houston Chronicle in the 1950s. Washington Star fashion editor Eleni Epstein also gave her papers to the NWMC. They revealed not only her fashion reporting but correspondence with her editors and her readers. Several other archives provided additional information such as fashion editor Aileen Ryan’s materials at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

My research also led me to the oral histories of Nina Hyde, located at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and Marylin Bender, located at Columbia University. Both histories also focused on their law degrees – although neither women practiced law. Two other oral histories examined were of Nadeane Walker Anderson, at the Associated Press archive, and Virginia Pope, at the New York Public Library.

How does your book relate to journalism history? How is it relevant to the present?

Women’s liberation leaders wanted newspapers to eliminate the women’s pages and put news about women on the front pages. It was an interesting theory but it did not work in practice. Instead, much of the news about women was eliminated. Some women’s page editors wanted to save their sections and raise the standards of the sections. Ultimately, these sections became lifestyle or feature sections. It also meant the loss of many fashion editors’ jobs. This project, like my previous books, documents the significant material in the women’s pages. It leads to a better understanding of soft news and the work of women’s page journalists.

What advice do you have for other historians that are working on or starting book projects?

Find your writing process and honor it. I try to write early in the morning before teaching and service commitments come up. I also make a plan for what I will cover next after each writing session. It helps provide a structure for the next writing moment. Writing groups can be helpful for accountability. Overall, simply finding time to write is the most important thing.