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Black Press Coverage Of The Emmett Till Lynching As A Catalyst To The Civil Rights Movement, Michael Randolph Oby

Communication Theses

BLACK PRESS COVERAGE OF THE EMMETT TILL LYNCHING AS A CATALYST TO THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT by MICHAEL OBY Under the Direction of Leonard Teel ABSTRACT The movement for civil rights in America gathered momentum throughout the 1950s. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown vs. The Board of Education ruling, declaring unconstitutional permissive or mandatory school segregation, the white South responded with both passive and active resistance. In the midst of this ferment, an African-American boy from Chicago was lynched in Mississippi. Subsequent stories in the black press reported not only Emmett Till’s murder and the trial, …