A comparison of attitudes toward the Negro as pictured in the Raleigh News and Observer in the years 1905, 1930 and 1955

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Charles Edward Massey (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Richard Bardolph

Abstract: It was the purpose of this study to investigate the changes in attitudes toward the Negro as pictured in the reporting and editorializing of the Raleigh News and Observer at twenty-five year intervals, 1905, 1930 and 1955. General studies of race relations in the United States indicated that changes had taken place during these time spans (1905-1930 and 1930-1955), however, the attitude changes evidenced in the reporting and editorializing of a single newspaper (the Raleigh News and Observer) were not so easily discernable. A thorough reading of the Raleigh News and Observer during the years 1905, 1930 and 1955 provided a large number of articles regarding Negroes which were catagorized under five main headings: politics, education, crime and punishment, labor, and religion. In 1905 most Southern whites were convinced that the Negro race was a thousand years behind the white race and many were determined to keep them there. By 1955 the Negro was on the verge of attaining complete equality according to the law. Reason had prevailed in the courts. However, one great barrier remained, a racial prejudice resulting from nearly three-hundred years of concentrated effort to defend the myth of white supremacy: a racial prejudice of which the News and Observer was itself both victim and promoter.

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Language: English
Date: 1972
Subjects
Journalism $x Political aspects $z North Carolina
Raleigh (N.C.) $v Newspapers $x History
North Carolina $x Race relations $x History

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