W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 2011 Strategic Victimization: News Photographs, the Birmingham Children's Crusade, and the Revisualization of America Margaret Keeton Williams College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons, and the Journalism Studies Commons Recommended Citation Williams, Margaret Keeton, "Strategic Victimization: News Photographs, the Birmingham Children's Crusade, and the Revisualization of America" (2011). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects.21220/s2-nmse-pz39 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact scholarworks@wm.
Strategic Victimization: News Photographs, The Birmingham Children’s Crusade, and the Revisualization of America Margaret Keeton Williams Dallas, Texas Bachelor of Arts, Rhodes College, 2006 A Thesis presented to the Graduate Faculty of the College of William and Mary in Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Arts American Studies Program The College of William and Mary January 2011 APPROVAL PAGE This Thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts Margaret Keeton Williams Approved by the Committee, December, 2010 _______________________ / 1 Committee Chair / O u r. QJnarles McGovern O 7 College of William and Mary Dr. Tim Barnard College of William and Marry Dr. Elizabeth Schroeder College of William and Mary ABSTRACT PAGE The American memory of the Civil Rights Movement is grounded in the iconic im ages that have com e to represent the African American struggle for equality.
Through the im ages created during the struggle for Civil Rights, the American public saw the reality of life for African Am ericans in the South, but more importantly the state of American dem ocracy. Reflected in th ese im ages is an America divided betw een those who defined citizenship a s a m atter of exclusion and those who fought for inclusion among that number. This is particularly true of the photographs from the 1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade. The im ages of dogs attacking and fire hoses cutting down groups of children clearly define the boundaries of citizenship within America.
The violence depicted in th ese im ages is not forgotten but has been superseded by the rem em brance of the m ovem ent’s accom plishm ents. The modern audience reinterprets the horrific violence represented in th ese im ages to stand for the triumph of American dem ocracy in the African American struggle. But the sentimental nationalism for which th ese im ages stand in today’s context begs questions about how their m eaning to contem porary 1960’s audiences challenged the American social system. How did those 1960’s audiences read these im ages? How did th ese im ages work to shift the public image of the Civil Rights M ovement? A close visual study of news photographs combined with an examination of the American public’s reactions to news coverage of the m ovem ent allows for insights into how the Civil Rights Movement reshaped American democracy.
The images, which appeared in national new spapers and m agazines during the 1963 Birmingham protests, mark a major turning point within the m ovem ent and the American reaction to the Civil Rights Movement. As the primary purveyor of contem porary photographs, national news publications becam e the medium through which the struggle over African American agency and victimization played out. Without the self-conscious aw areness of image making and the creation of events that forced confrontational, politically corrective images, the creation of a community of sym pathizers and the reevaluation of the African American place in American society would not have been possible. The im ages of the violence in Birmingham published following the May 1963 protests were vital to the su c ce ss of the movement.
Thus, an examination of those im ages that appeared in the national press and the reaction to those im ages can give us greater insight into the ways in which the m ovem ent used the media to its advantage. The use of children combined with the violent reaction of the civic authority worked to highlight the injustices and hypocrisy of the American social structure. The triangular relationship of producer, subject and audience in th ese im ages brings together all of the actors (new sm en, protestors, and m ainstream public) in a way that forced a conversation about and rethinking of the American social landscape. While the reshaping of a national identity w as not an immediate process, the images, which appear in the m ainstream media during the Birmingham protests, mark a major turning point within the m ovem ent and the American reaction to the Civil Rights Movement.
Without the self-conscious aw areness of image making and the creation of events that forced confrontational, politically corrective im ages such as those discussed here, the creation of a community of sym pathizers and the reevaluation of the African American place in American society would not have been possible. The im ages of the violence in Birmingham published in national new spapers and m agazines following the May 1963 protests w ere vital to the su c ce ss of the m ovem ent and a key in reshaping the American social landscape. List of Figures Figure 1: Charles Moore, http://www.edu/oldsite/moore.site/Pages/birm ingham 8. html Figure 2: http://www.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/cartoons/watertoon.B Du Bois, Negro Life in Georgia, U.
Figure 4: Jet M agazine 10 March, 1960: 15. Figure 5: Charles Moore. Michael Durham, Powerful Days: The Civil Rights Photography o f Charles Moore (New York: Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, 1991), Figure 6: “Violence Explodes at Racial Protests in Alabama.” New York Times 4 May, 1963:1 Figure 7: “Spectacle o f Racial Turbulence in Birmingham.” Life Magazine 17 May, 1963:26. Figure 8: “Freedom Marcher, 6, Arrested.” Jet Magazine 16 May 1963: 33.
Also appeared in Birmingham News, May 3, 1963. Figure 9: “Violence Explodes at Racial Protests in Alabama.” New York Times 4 May, 1963:1. Also appeared in Washington Post and LA Times, May 4,1963. Figure 10: “Birmingham Jails 1,000 More Negroes.” New York Times 1 May, 1963: 1.
i Strategic Victimization Introduction The American memory of the Civil Rights Movement is grounded in the iconic images that have come to represent the African American struggle for equality. Through the images created during the struggle for Civil Rights, the American public saw the reality of life for African Americans in the South, but more importantly the state of American democracy. Reflected in these images is an America divided between those who defined citizenship as a matter of exclusion and those who fought for inclusion among that number. This is particularly true of the photographs from the 1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade.
Figure 1: Charles Moore, http://www.edu/oldsite/moore.site/Pages/birmingham8.html The images of dogs attacking and fire hoses cutting down groups of children clearly define the boundaries of citizenship within America. The iconic status that such images have achieved reflects both their significance for modem American society and their importance for understanding the movement’s historical context. Images such as Figure 1 have become visual reminders of a movement that reshaped American social and political structure. The violence depicted in these images is not forgotten but has 2 been superseded by the remembrance of the movement’s accomplishments.
The modem audience reinterprets the horrific violence represented in these images to stand for the triumph of American democracy in the African American struggle. But the sentimental nationalism for which these images stand in today’s context begs questions about how their meaning to contemporary 1960’s audiences challenged the American social system. The goal of this study is to recontextualize the images coming out of Birmingham in May of 1963. Unlike the fast moving barrage of images flashing across the television screen, the still photographs appearing in the newspaper captured a single moment, grounding the viewer in a concrete moment of action, allowing the viewers to exam the people and the action in depth.
Through an examination of African Americans’ and movement leaders’ historical understanding of the importance of images and image making along with a study of how images can in fact do political work, we discover how audiences in the 1960’s read these images. Thus also asking questions about how these images worked to shift the public image of the Civil Rights Movement and what those images tell Americans about the state of American society in the 1960’s. Gaining public awareness of their struggles against the injustices faced by African Americans had long been an obstacle for Civil Rights leaders. Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the harsh realities of African American life received little attention from white mainstream media.1 Local reporting rarely covered 1 A number o f scholars have worked specifically on the role race played in the media.
See Sasha Torres, Black White and in Color (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003); Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle and The Awakening o f a Nation (New York: Vintage Books, 2006); Stephanie G. Larson, Media and Minorities: The Politics o f Race in News and Entertainment (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Fisher, Race and the News Media (New York: Praeger, 1967). 3 African American protests, thus hindering any national attention local Civil Rights activities may have attracted.
Yet, by mid-century, protests began to intensify and incorporate a broader black community into local activism. Events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the desegregation of schools challenged white supremacy and Jim Crow, fostering white racial aggression and community upheaval. By the late 1950’s, the national press could no longer ignore Civil Rights activities.2 News reports and images permeated American newspapers and television, turning local conflicts into topics of national discussion. The 1960’s were record-breaking years for newspaper circulation.
Every morning more than 59 million papers went out in the state of New York.3 In California newspapers reached over 24 million every morning.4 So even as television was gaining a wider audience, newspaper readership continued to climb. Taking these numbers along with magazines such as Life reaching 31.3 million each week, news photographs were still permeating the American visual sphere.5 OF the images in this study three were distributed by the Associated Press and appeared in both local and national publications across the U. Thus, the audience these images were reaching spanned across region, class, and presumably race. As we will discover there is a historical understanding among African Americans of the racial system dominated by violence and inequality, especially in the south.
A major component to the success of the Civil Rights Movement involved forcing the rest of America to see the reality of the racialized American social system. By focusing on images that appeared in multiple national publications we can assume a 2 For more reading on the progression o f the press’s handing of Civil Rights activities see Roberts and Klibanoff, The Race Beat. 3 “Rockefeller Hails Rise in Newspaper Standards.” New York Times, 7 October, 1963:7. 4 “Newspaper Circulation Sets Record.” Los Angeles Times, 22 February, 1963:23.
Dunn, “Memo” Life, 24 May, 1963 :B1. Through the letters Americans wrote to their newspapers and magazines after seeing these images gives insight into how the American mainstream audience was interpreting and reacting to these images. The images of the 1963 Birmingham protests shifted the nation’s understanding of the Civil Rights Movement. During the first week of May, images of black children being knocked down by water hoses and police dogs ripping off their clothing filled national newspapers and nightly newscasts.
The depiction of the racial violence on a national level elevated the Civil Rights struggle from a local issue to a national problem as all Americans were visually confronted with the oppression of African Americans in the south.