‘Journalism and Jim Crow,’ Edited by Kathy Roberts Forde, Wins American Historical Association Book Prize

The American Historical Association (AHA) has awarded the Eugenia M. Palmegiano Book Prize to “Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America,” the recent book co-edited by Kathy Roberts Forde, professor of journalism and associate dean of equity and inclusion in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS).

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“Journalism and Jim Crow” documents how white newspaper publishers and editors collaborated with white political, industrial, and business leaders to build violent white supremacist political economies and social orders in the South from 1875-1920 and beyond. It also shows how Black news leaders fought back, documenting this anti-Black, anti-Democratic work as it happened. One of the chapters of the book, “Convict Wars in Tennessee,” was written by Razvan Sibii, senior lecturer of journalism

The AHA prize, which will be awarded at the AHA’s 136th annual meeting in Philadelphia Jan. 5-8, is just the latest acclamation for the book. It has previously received the American Journalism Historians Association Book of the Year Award and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication History Division Book Award, and was named a finalist for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Tankard Book Award.

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“I’m especially proud of the deep involvement of undergraduate students in the research for this book and the diverse team of scholars we tapped to contribute,” Forde says. “Creating the book was a passion project. We intended the book to be less like an edited book of essays and more like a coherent monograph with a strong controlling argument and rich empirical historical research. We wanted to make a major intervention in various fields and to show how the press can either defend democracy or serve the ends of authoritarianism, kleptocracy, white supremacy and violence. I think we’ve succeeded.

“Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America,” which was published in December 2021 by University of Illinois Press, is available for purchase online and from local bookstores.