scholarly journals God's words in the language of men : the professionalization of the Southern Baptist Press

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Vicki Knasel Brown
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Southern Baptist ◽  
Southern Baptists ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Religious Media ◽  
The Press ◽  
Faith Traditions ◽  
Journalistic Professionalism ◽  
Political Right

Although religion is and has been an integral aspect of society, its journalism has been overlooked. Media scholars have viewed the religious press as less worthy and less professional than its commercial counterparts, despite the fact that religious media reaches millions of people. This study illuminates the professional development of the Southern Baptist press as an example of religious media's effort to provide news and information to their audiences. Journalists in religious media balance their personal faith, the specific faith traditions for which they work, and professionalism. Southern Baptist journalists exhibited the traits, practices, and beliefs that mark journalistic professionalism. This dissertation shows how the Civil Rights Movement and the SBC's further shift to the theological and political right affected Southern Baptist journalism. Southern Baptist newsworkers lived their religion through the practice of journalism in spite of the denomination's institutional barriers. Freedom of the press and autonomy became the professional values most at stake for newsworkers as denominational leaders insisted journalists should concentrate on promotion. Through the Civil Rights Movement, most journalists tried to maintain a centrist position, pushing obedience to federal law and the effect on mission efforts overseas. A few courageous journalists pushed for Southern Baptists to recognize all people as children of God. The Southern Baptist Convention's further shift to the theological and political right cost several journalists their jobs and essentially returned SBC journalism to its promotional roots.

Full Court Press

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason A. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
The State ◽  
Caste System ◽  
Mississippi State University ◽  
State University ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
College Basketball ◽  
The Press ◽  
Closed Society

During the civil rights era, Mississippi was cloaked in the hateful embrace of the Closed Society, historian James Silver’s description of the white caste system that enforced segregation and promoted the subservient treatment of blacks. Surprisingly, challenges from Mississippi’s college basketball courts brought into question the validity of the Closed Society and its unwritten law, a gentleman’s agreement that prevented college teams in the Magnolia State from playing against integrated foes. Mississippi State University was at the forefront of the battle for equality in the state with the school’s successful college basketball program. From 1959 through 1963, the Maroons won four Southeastern Conference basketball championships and created a championship dynasty in the South’s preeminent college athletic conference. However, in all four title-winning seasons, the press feverishly debated the merits of an NCAA appearance for the Maroons, culminating in Mississippi State University’s participation in the integrated 1963 National Collegiate Athletic Association’s National Championship basketball tournament. Full Court Press examines news articles, editorials, and columns published in Mississippi’s newspapers during the eight-year existence of the gentleman’s agreement, the challenges posed by Mississippi State University, and the subsequent integration of college basketball within the state. While the majority of reporters opposed any effort to integrate athletics, a segment of sports journalists, led by the charismatic Jimmie McDowell of the Jackson State Times, emerged as bold and progressive advocates for equality. Full Court Press highlights an ideological metamorphosis within the press during the Civil Rights Movement, slowly transforming from an organ that minimized the rights of blacks to an industry that weighted the plight of blacks on equal footing with their white brethren.

Not in Our Church

2021 ◽  
pp. 14-42
Author(s):  
J. Russell Hawkins
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Southern Baptist ◽  
Southern Baptist Convention ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Baptist Churches ◽  
Southern Baptist Churches ◽  
The People ◽  
Church Polity

Chapter 1 explores the tensions that arose in southern evangelicalism between local church congregations and state- and nation-level bodies in the wake of the 1954 Brown decision. Such tensions reveal how Southern Baptists and Methodists negotiated the heightened antagonism emerging between denominational leaders and the people in the pews over civil rights in the mid-1950s. The chapter opens with South Carolina Southern Baptist churches rejecting broader Southern Baptist Convention efforts to advocate for civil rights in religious language and concludes with lay South Carolina Methodists defending the White Citizens’ Councils against criticism from a small number of Methodist clergy. Both these studies reveal the effective authority of local congregations in directing southern white churches’ responses to matters of race in the civil rights years. This chapter highlights that the congregational-level perspective gives the best vantage point for understanding white evangelicalism’s response to the civil rights movement, regardless of church polity.

Protecting Students' Civil Rights: The Federal Role in School Discipline

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Cardichon ◽  
Linda Darling-Hammond
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
School Discipline ◽  
Educational Equity ◽  
Policy Tools ◽  
Educational Inequalities ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Policies And Practices

This article takes a careful look at political and policy tools that presidential administrations have at their disposal for ameliorating educational inequalities. These tools, the authors suggest, include issuing federal guidance that informs and supports states and districts as they work to implement policies and practices that comply with federal law. However, as the authors point out, the extent to which administrations have chosen to leverage these opportunities to advance educational equity has varied over time.

Not as It Is Written

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-100
Author(s):  
Benjamin Houston
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
International Exhibition ◽  
Black Experience ◽  
American Perspective ◽  
History Of ◽  
Black Life ◽  
Made In

This article discusses an international exhibition that detailed the recent history of African Americans in Pittsburgh. Methodologically, the exhibition paired oral history excerpts with selected historic photographs to evoke a sense of Black life during the twentieth century. Thematically, showcasing the Black experience in Pittsburgh provided a chance to provoke among a wider public more nuanced understandings of the civil rights movement, an era particularly prone to problematic and superficial misreadings, but also to interject an African American perspective into the scholarship on deindustrializing cities, a literature which treats racism mostly in white-centric terms. This essay focuses on the choices made in reconciling these thematic and methodological dimensions when designing this exhibition.

Too Close for Comfort: Canada, the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, and the North American Colo(u)r Line

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Asa McKercher
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
North American ◽  
The North ◽  
The U.S

Too Close for Comfort: Canada, the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, and the North American Colo(u)r Line

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