Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race, 1938-1948 (The John Hope Franklin Series in African... |
Buy Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race, 1938-1948 (The John Hope Franklin Series in African... here, one of 553 African American History books offered for sale at discount prices here in the history books section at R bookshop. There are currently 71919 history books in our history books section, and over 1,000,000 books listed in our book store. We greatly appreciate your patronage at R bookshop and look forward to offering you a large selection of great books at discount prices now and in the future. Thank you for shopping at R Bookshop!
|
You Are Here: Home > History Books > African American History > Item 182
 |
Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race, 1938-1948 (The John Hope Franklin Series in African...
|
by Barbara Dianne Savage
Sales Rank: 1040415
|
List Price: $21.95
$5.79
At Amazon
on 6-17-2008.
|
|
|
|
Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 408 pages
Published by: The University of North Carolina Press May 12, 1999
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0807848042
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0807848043
Book Dimensions:
9.2 x 5.8 x 1 inches
Weighs: 1.2 pounds
From Library Journal
As the first national mass medium, radio emerged as a forum for debating racial injustice. Savage (history, Univ. of Pennsylvania) focuses on national public affairs programming from 1938 to 1948 and explores the interactions of radio, race, and politics. Tracing the origins, content, and reception of selected programs, Savage reveals the battle lines and hardworking heroes of the struggle to assure blacks a popularly accessible and politically acceptable place in the discourse of U.S. history and culture. Her deft treatment of the activists, programming, public policies, and symbolic politics broadens views of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and pioneers new scholarship in radios rich but virtually ignored historical role. Savages work complements Melvin Patrick Elys The Adventures of Amos N Andy: A Social History of an American Phenomenon (Free Pr., 1991. o.p.), Herman Grays Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness (Univ. of Minnesota, 1995), and Sasha Torress Living Color: Race and Television in the United States (Duke Univ., 1998). Highly recommended.Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Savage, a University of Pennsylvania history professor, draws on largely unexplored material in tracing the efforts of African Americans between 1938 and 1950 to use radio to contradict stereotypes and develop a more inclusive history of the U.S. Part 1, "Federal Constructions of `the Negro,'" covers federal radio projects in the late 1930s and the early 1940s as well as efforts to win support from the Office of War Information. Part 2, "Airing the Race Question," addresses programs on network radio, including those developed by the National Urban League, African American involvement in network discussion programs, and notable local series--"New World A'Comin'" in New York and "Destination Freedom" in Chicago. An involving story, heavily documented; appropriate for greater media studies collections. Mary Carroll
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Reader Reviews
The group portrait of Afro-Americans painted in popular media during the first half of the twentieth century was one composed overwhelmingly with stereotypical images on top of a background of bigotry-needless to say, it is not flattering, and radio was no exception. This fact is so overwhelmingly documented in the public record and within historical scholarship that it barely needs enunciation here, and Professor Savage does not dwell upon it. What she does dwell upon is how radio was used by activists, artists, and entertainers, very often with the assistance of the federal government, during the period in question. As Savage argues, through the efforts of a great many people forgotten within the dominant narrative of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950's and 1960's, new ground was broken which would yield much greater fruit than before, during, or immediately after the Second World War-the period when it was first aired. Savage is interested primarily in how a few radio programs, nearly all produced with no, or next to no, commercial backing, bucked, but sometimes also skirted, the dominant perceptions of blacks in the popular media. That Savage only concentrates so thoroughly upon less than a dozen programs during this period would at first seem reasonable cause for concern that a good deal of primary documentation had been left out. What becomes depressingly clear over the course of Savage's narrative is that programs she details represent virtually the only broadcasts of their kind. Namely, programs that acknowledged there was a race problem in the United States, and, that with the increasing likelihood of war, something needed to be done about it. Savage shows in her descriptions of the programs Americans All, Immigrants All; Freedom's People; New World A' Coming and Destination Freedom, that the contributions of black men and women were unknown or unacknowledged. These programs were certainly inadequate to task of overthrowing on-air racism, but each one attempted in their own novel ways to counter racial stereotypes. When Savage describes how radio roundtables and panels, not dissimilar from those we still see on Sunday mornings, approached questions of race in the months before American participation in the Second World War commenced, the timidity of the national networks is nearly comical. Very often the programs would broach the subject of black America without the presence of a single black person. The sort of milquetoast conversation that one would expect from a completely "objective" and moderate circle of people with little or no personal stake in the status of a subject is how Savage describes the first, and lily-white, discussion of race that the popular University of Chicago Round Table broached-being a non-confrontational conversation between three people who nearly completely agreed with each other and reflected the mainstream opinion that discrimination was bad, but having no idea of what to do about it except accept it-garnered very little controversy. As black intellectuals began to find their way onto these programs, Savage shows through her study of listeners' letters just how virulent and widespread white supremacist and visceral anti-black feelings were when they were confronted head on-just virulent these feelings were is one of the surprises of Savage's study and goes along way towards showing what blacks and racial progressives were up against. Savage is a part of what is today the dominant school of the thought on the Civil Rights Movement, namely, that it had its roots in the struggles of the 1930's and that the Second World War were the biggest social catalysts behind the Movements parts coalescing-equal to, if not more important than, Brown v. Board of Education. Rightfully, Savage does not make any grandiose claims for the effectiveness of the radio broadcasts in laying the groundwork of the Movements' imperatives or goals, but instead shows how the changing dynamics of American racial politics made possible the first baby steps in what Americans today would recognize as the continuous dialogue on what is the most intractable problem in American politics; racial inequality and injustice. As such the book deserves nothing but praise.
Comment | |
(Report this)
Back To Top
|
Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race, 1938-1948 (The John Hope Franklin Series in African...
Available from Amazon
Price: $5.79
Updated on 6-17-2008.
|
NOTICE: All prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.
| We offer Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race, 1938-1948 (The John Hope Franklin Series in African... and other related African American History Books here at Rbookshop.com. To view more books about African American History please use the previous and next buttons near the top of this page.
|
|
Search for books at
