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LESSON
PLAN:THE BLACK PRESS By Angela Dodson, adjunct instructor for media issues and communications Subjects: civics, United States history, language arts (journalism and communications) Estimated time of completion: Approximately three, 40-minute class periods, if the teacher is using the recommended film; or one to two class periods using other materials suggested. Lesson Objectives
Overview: Publications owned and largely staffed by African Americans have made significant contributions to the nation as a whole. Exploring their role can help students understand central concepts of how our democracy works and how ordinary people have shaped it by exercising the right to a free and vibrant press. The black press is also a model for studying how the media have evolved. A national press, once dominated by advocacy journalism, has given way to our relatively modern concept of an objective press with room for clearly labeled opinion and for specialized outlets serving and advocating for specific audiences. According to the Africana encyclopedia, Freedom's Journal, founded in New York City on March 16, 1827, was the first black newspaper established in the United States. Owned by John B. Russwurm and Samuel E. Cornish, it took a vigorous stand against slavery. As many as 40 black newspapers began publishing before the Civil War, most of them in the North. One of them, The North Star, established by Frederick Douglass, eclipsed others in influence as a voice for abolition. After the war, black publishing thrived, and by 1890 an estimated 575 black publications were in existence. In the early 20th century, black newspapers in the North - as well as the Pullman car porters who often spirited them south - are credited with fueling the Great Migration of blacks out of the dying southern agricultural economy to industrial jobs in the cities. Leading newspapers included the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier, whose influence even exceeded their respectable circulations of about 250,000 to 350,000 each. (Later their readership would shrink to less than a tenth of those figures.) By the time of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, nearly every city large and small supported at least one black newspaper, more than 300 in all. The numbers quickly declined as the compelling and dramatic story of the civil rights movement moved into mainstream papers. Readers, and just as importantly some of their most talented staff members, moved with the story. The larger papers had more money to throw at the news and could therefore cover more events. Daily papers, which had largely either ignored or stereotyped blacks, had also begun to broaden their outlook. Many first hired blacks to help cover the civil rights and urban riot stories and later for more day-to-day news of black communities, where white reporters often could not get access. Controversies over whether the industry was hiring and promoting people of color quickly enough or too rapidly continue to haunt the industry. In the meantime, the black magazine industry continued to thrive with such publications as Ebony and Jet, and by the 1970s even gave rise to highly profitable mass-market titles like Essence and Black Enterprise. Newer African American publications, including magazines and Web sites, tend to be highly specialized, covering books or music, for instance. The dominance of television, the rise of Internet news sources and a decline in readership of printed publications remain challenges for the media as a whole. So do huge losses of advertising overall. African American publications often had difficulty attracting major advertising and continue to suffer in a weak economy. At the same time, the trend toward specialization offers new advertising opportunities for many kinds of publications for specific ethnic, age or interest groups. Main Source: Microsoft Encarta Africana Materials:
Correlation
to National Standards Procedures Lesson 1: Pre-learning activity. Ask the students to look for African American newspapers or other ethnic or women's newspapers from your area, or gather them yourself, display and point out a few in class. Preview the topic based on the overview. If you are using video, give introductory remarks on Day 1. Then show the video, Soldiers Without Swords, dividing over two or more class periods if necessary Lesson 2: Present Handouts #1-3 and review key dates in the timeline of the press and the early history, particularly of abolitionist papers. Referring to Handout #4, Phyl Garland's quote, ask students what is the difference between advocacy journalism and objective journalism? Is there a need or obligation for advocacy in media today? What is objectivity? Ask your students to discuss the role of the black press. If you wish, divide students into small groups to discuss one or more of the questions below and report back on their comments. Lesson 2 or 3: If you are using the video, you may wish to give a brief quiz after each segment, possibly at the beginning of class on the second and third day, Day 2 and Day 3, in 40-minute class periods, or ask students to write a one-paragraph reaction to the previous lesson, or proceed with Handouts #1-3 & 4 and discussion above. Suggested questions for pre-learning or culminating activity include:
Additional discussion or writing ideas: 1. Using copies of the newspapers and other publications you have gathered, ask students to point out some of the topics covered. Ask them if those stories would be found in other publications? Should people who don't read those publications now know about those stories? Who advertises in them? 2.
If time permits, discuss the media today, and the role that ethics and race may
have played in the recent journalism scandals: See NewsHour Extra's lesson plan:
The
Unspoken Words of Media Ethics: Do we know what they are? And
the related NewsHour transcript: "Policing
Papers" on the reforms at the New York Times to make the paper more accountable
to the public. 4. Invite a representative of the black press or an editor of a special-interest publication to speak, or assign students to interview a journalist from a minority group, a different culture or special-interest publication, for example, a newspaper for suburban mothers, a Web site for Jewish singles, or a Korean-language magazine. (Why is their publication needed? Who are the customers? Who advertises in it?) Additional
resources for teachers African
American Resources Minneapolis
Public Library Black
Journalists History Project (Maynard Institute for Journalism Education) Library
of Congress: African-American History and Culture Schomberg
Center for Research in Black Culture National
Newspaper Publishers Association, Inc. www.blackpressusa.com National
Association of Black Journalists Poynter
Institute A high school journalism guide with tips for student publications is also linked: http://www.poynterextra.org/centerpiece/highschool/index.htm Books:Broussard,
Jinx Coleman, Giving a Voice to the Voiceless: Four Black Women Journalists
(Studies in African American History and Culture, Carson, Clayborne Bill Kovach, Carol Polsgrove, eds. Reporting Civil Rights: American Journalism 1941-1963, Vol. 1, Penguin Putnam, Incorporated, January 2003, and Reporting Civil Rights: American Journalism 1963-1973, Vol. 2 Clayborne Carson, Bill Kovach, Carol Polsgrove, Penguin Putnam, 2003 Danky,
James Philip, et al, eds. African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: Dawkins, Wayne, Rugged Waters: Black Journalists Swim the Mainstream, by Wayne Dawkins, August Press. 2003 Farrar,
Howard. The Baltimore Afro-American, 1892-1950. Pride, Armistead S. and Clint C. Wilson II, A History of the Black Press, Howard University Press, 1997. Sachsman, David B., et. al, eds. The Civil War and the Press, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2000. Suggs,
Henry Lewis, ed. The Black Press in the Middle West, 1865-1985. Streitmatter, Rodger, Raising Her Voice: African-American Women Journalists Who Changed History, University Press of Kentucky; 1994 Vogel, Todd, The Black Press; New Literary and Historical Essays, Rutgers University Press, 2001. National
Standards
Angela has also taught workshops on writing and editing for many organizations including the National Association of Black Journalists, the American Press Institute and the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the MIJE Editing Program and various colleges. To find out more about opportunities to contribute to this site, contact Leah Clapman at extra@newshour.org. |
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