The Role of Television in Ending Segregaation in the United States

The Role of Television in Ending Segregaation in the United States

In 1964 segregation was banned in public places as part of The Civil

Rights Act. Leading on from this, things for black Americans improved

until in the 1987 17 large US cities even had black mayors. But before

these times there was segregation everywhere, from schools and

restaurants to buses and water fountains. Black and white Americans

simply did not mix. The decision for desegregation leads from a number

of things, with various forms of media playing a central part,

including television, and without this, could desegregation really

have been obtained at all?

By the time of desegregation in the USA, almost everybody had a

television and watched it frequently. News programmes were on

frequently and viewed by many. These highlighted the problems of

racial tension, mainly by the reports ran on real events such as

protests and marches and therefore showed the truth, with

eye-witnesses being interviewed and photographs being broadcasting. An

example of these photographs is in Source G, an image of Birmingham,

Alabama in 1963, showing civil rights protesters. It shows great

racial tension and the abuse faced by Negroes, which moved white

citizens, gaining sympathy and support for the black Americans and the

cause that they were fighting for. Although there were these sorts of

images in newspapers, the television had more affect, with the

pictures being right in front of you and viewers could see that it as

real. For the first time it was recognised properly that racial

discrimination was a national problem that needed to be resolved, and

as it says in Source H, an...

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... with the police. Despite this it got them a lot of publicity, bringing

the problem frequently in the public eye and causing people to take

notice of what was going on. It was publicity and keeping the issue on

the surface that caused the changes to be made, but without the forms

of media such as newspapers and television, the country would not have

known about the extremity of the racism so the groups would have had

no success in anything but provoking their local area.

Although, as the author of Source I believes, television played a

crucial part in ending segregation in the USA, without the other forms

of media discussed backing it up, television would have not made any

difference to the situation of racism. It takes the contribution of

all media types for any one of them to have any kind of impact of

segregation.