In this Book
- Shocking the Conscience: A Reporter's Account of the Civil Rights Movement
- Book
- 2012
- Published by: University Press of Mississippi
summary
Within a few years of its first issue in 1951, Jet, a pocket-size magazine, became the "bible" for news of the civil rights movement. It was said, only half-jokingly, "If it wasn't in Jet, it didn't happen." Writing for the magazine and its glossy, big sister Ebony, for fifty-three years, longer than any other journalist, Washington bureau chief Simeon Booker was on the front lines of virtually every major event of the revolution that transformed America.
Rather than tracking the freedom struggle from the usually cited ignition points, Shocking the Conscience begins with a massive voting rights rally in the Mississippi Delta town of Mound Bayou in 1955. It's the first rally since the Supreme Court's Brown decision struck fear in the hearts of segregationists across the former Confederacy. It was also Booker's first assignment in the Deep South, and before the next run of the weekly magazine, the killings would begin. Booker vowed that lynchings would no longer be ignored beyond the black press. Jet was reaching into households across America, and he was determined to cover the next murder like none before. He had only a few weeks to wait. A small item on the AP wire reported that a Chicago boy vacationing in Mississippi was missing. Booker was on it, and stayed on it, through one of the most infamous murder trials in U.S. history. His coverage of Emmett Till's death lit a fire that would galvanize the movement, while a succession of U.S. presidents wished it would go away. This is the story of the century that changed everything about journalism, politics, and more in America, as only Simeon Booker, the dean of the black press, could tell it.Table of Contents
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- Introduction
- pp. xi-xii
- 1. The Sleeping Giant
- pp. 3-13
- 2. “Time Is Running Out”
- pp. 14-17
- 4. Born to Dream
- pp. 26-48
- 5. “Let Them See What I’ve Seen”
- pp. 49-62
- 6. The Trial
- pp. 63-83
- 8. “A Communist under Every Bed”
- pp. 94-107
- 9. Ike’s First Term
- pp. 108-111
- 10. The Battle of Little Rock
- pp. 112-130
- 11. Eisenhower Redux
- pp. 131-153
- 12. Baltimore, My Baltimore
- pp. 154-161
- 13. A Tale of Two Campaigns
- pp. 162-173
- 14. A New Day Dawning
- pp. 174-179
- 15. The Freedom Rides
- pp. 180-204
- 16. No Ordinary Football Game
- pp. 205-210
- 17. Camelot, The Final Act
- pp. 211-231
- 18. A Southern President
- pp. 232-247
- 19. “All the Way with LBJ”
- pp. 248-264
- 20. Fighting On
- pp. 265-281
- 21. A Familiar Face
- pp. 282-294
- 22. The End of the Beginning
- pp. 295-310
- Acknowledgments
- pp. 311-312
- Selected Bibliography
- pp. 321-322
Additional Information
ISBN
9781621039495
Related ISBN(s)
9781617037894
MARC Record
OCLC
843071612
Pages
352
Launched on MUSE
2013-02-13
Language
English
Open Access
No