‘Journalism and Jim Crow’ Wins Several Awards

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) has selected “Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America” as the best journalism and mass communication history book of the year. The book is 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), and contains a chapter written by Razvan Sibii, senior lecturer of journalism.

Image

“We are thrilled that our peers in AEJMC have honored ‘Journalism and Jim Crow’ with this award. Thank you to all our brilliant contributors, who tell this difficult history with nuance and compelling evidence,” tweeted Forde on receiving the news about the award.

A panel of three distinguished media historians chose “Journalism and Jim Crow” from among many strong entries from across the country. The book is comprised of researched essays focusing on the American South after Reconstruction, the time following the end of the Civil War. The essays outline how the white press constructed and sustained white supremacy through information published throughout the South and beyond.

The American Journalism Historians Association has also selected “Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America” as its 2022 Book of the Year Award winner. This is the first edited collection to be awarded the prize.

“Journalism and Jim Crow” won during a very competitive year, but judges believed this book stood out as a particularly important contribution to the field. “Perhaps no other volume in the book award’s history has promised to make such an important intervention in our understanding of the role of journalists in negotiation systemic racism – insights that promise to affect change in our modern world,” said one judge.

Forde and co-editor Sid Bedingfield, professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, will participate in a panel discussion about the book at the upcoming AJHA Annual Conference in Memphis, Tennessee.

“Journalism and Jim Crow” illuminates the role of the Southern press in building an upholding America’s own system of apartheid in a way that helps us understand how our nation’s current race relations came to be so troubled. It is the right book for this historical moment,” commented a judge on the winning book.

“Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America” is now available for purchase online or from local bookstores.