The Coverage of the 1963 Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing
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Newsweek and the Atlanta Daily World The Coverage of the 1963 Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing Beatrice Rosen May, 2013 Journalism 190 The bombing of Birmingham’s largest black church, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, solidified the city’s reputation as one of America’s most racially discriminatory and segregated cities. On the morning of September 15, 1963, around 200 church members were in the Byzantine-style structure for Sunday school when the bomb went off. Placed under the basement by Ku Klux Klan leader Robert “Dynamite Bob” Chambliss and three other members, four black girls were killed and more than 20 others were injured in the blast. The brutal attack drew international attention to the violent struggle for civil rights in Birmingham, as well as extensive news coverage from a wide-range of organizations. From local to national, magazines to newspapers, dailies to weeklies, and progressive to conservative standpoints, many factors played a role in how each organization approached the tragedy. In analyzing the articles on the bombing specifically from Newsweek and the Atlanta Daily World, it is apparent how such factors led to diverse types of coverage that impacted Americans to varying degrees. As a progressive, news-weekly magazine, and the second-largest in the United States, Newsweek covered over twenty different beats in editions up to 100 pages. It was a division of the Washington Post Company, an American mass media company, owned and operated by Katharine Graham. According to Graham, the general principles of the organization involved objective reporting, with a commitment to journalistic standards and ideals: “The newspaper shall not be the ally of any special interest, but shall be fair and free and wholesome in its outlook on public affairs and public men.” At the time of the 1963 church bombing, Harvard University graduate Osborn Elliot was the editor. Previously employed with the Journal of Commerce and Time magazine, Elliot was known as one of the earliest practitioners of “civic journalism:” the deliberate focusing of the journalistic enterprise on urgent issues of public policy. Civic journalism, also known as “public journalism,” integrated journalism into the democratic process so the media not only informed the public, but also worked toward engaging citizens and creating public debate. With a newfound focus on this movement, Newsweek’s circulation doubled to three million issues during Elliot’s 15 years as editor. Elliot’s efforts to promote civic journalism were evident in the magazine’s seven-page article on the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing. From the extensive research, reports, and interviews conducted following the bombing, it took a full two weeks to compile and transform the information into one dramatic narrative. When the two-part feature story was finally published in Newsweek’s September 30th issue, the countless hours dedicated to the story went above and beyond the practices of civic journalism; American citizens were not only “shocked and shaken” by Newsweek’s account of a still racially divided Southern city, but also motivated to help put an end to the ongoing horror. Joseph B. Cumming Jr., Karl Fleming, and Frank Trippett were the staff members behind the Newsweek story of Birmingham’s “Bloody Sunday” and the accompanying analysis of the city that spawned such terror. Cumming was the chief editor of the Atlanta bureau at the time, and also an aristocrat who grew up in a privileged family in the Jim Crow South. He joined Newsweek in Atlanta in the early 1960’s, with the aim to transmit the stories of the South to the nation. He typically wrote about the gradual transformation of the South amidst the dramatic desegregationist movement, all from a front-row seat. Fleming was also bred in the Jim Crow South, but instead born into dire poverty and upheaval. He previously worked at small North Carolina newspapers before joining Newsweek in 1961. As a progressive reporter who took notes at Ku Klux Klan rallies, Fleming was constantly trailed by segregationists and his phones were always tapped. He was nearly shot in 1962 during riots at the University of Mississippi after James Meredith’s admission as the first African American student. Gene Roberts, a former top editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer and New York Times, described Fleming as “one of these reporters who would go anywhere, any time, no matter what the danger, if the story was good enough.” Newsweek allowed these two tenacious and gritty top Southern reporters two weeks to dig-up every detail needed to write a groundbreaking narrative on the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing and its implications regarding the racial conditions of Birmingham. Thus, from September 15th to September 29th, Cumming and Fleming spent sunrise to sunset researching, attending meetings, interviewing citizens, and gathering any notable details on the city and its history. They recovered information dated back to the city’s birth in 1871, including scores of ugly facts that track the city’s slow descent into its current state of violent segregation. Cumming writes, in a telegram report to the New York City offices from the Birmingham Downtowner Motel on September 19th, 1963, “It is difficult to find records of the turmoil by going to the library and looking through the shelf of books on Birmingham history.” Cumming said they tell of events like the Hawes Riot of 1888, when a guard was called out to protect a demented man who had killed his family from a lynch mob, but fail to mention the 1908 riots when 18,000 mine workers walked off the job and, evicted from company houses, set up “tent-city.” He added in the report that “the use of race propaganda to disrupt the integrated tent-city has been thoroughly suppressed in the record and lives only as folklore in B’ham.” However, after Cumming and Fleming were done with their investigative reporting, there was no such thing as mythological events like the tent-city incident. All of the folklore buried deep in Birmingham history was unearthed and brought to light, with hard evidence to back it up. At the end of each day, Cumming and Fleming filed their reports back to Newsweek’s main offices in New York City, where Frank Trippett was waiting with his hands poised above the type-writer. Mississippi-born and raised, Trippett was a natural writer. He previously worked for newspapers in the South before joining Newsweek in 1961 as one of the four associate editors for the national affairs beat. He was also a senior editor of Look magazine, and a senior writer and essayist for Time magazine. His essay subjects ranged from politics and personalities to social conditions and psychological phenomena, and his multiple fiction and non-fiction publications won him numerous awards. Thus, Newsweek’s choice to assign Trippett the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing story was a no-brainer. The organizational structure of Newsweek was designed to generate compelling feature articles, which notably benefited staff writers. In Trippett’s case, three other associate editors worked alongside him in the national affairs beat. This allowed Trippett to methodically sift through the reports from Cumming and Fleming, and dedicate a significant amount of time to edit and synthesize the details into a captivatingly vivid and moving feature story on the bombing. The fact that Newsweek was a weekly magazine, and not a bi-weekly or daily publication, also allotted Trippett a sufficient amount of time to write. There was no pressure to put something on the wire everyday, so staff-writers could dedicate time and thought to every article. Cumming, Fleming, and Trippett’s article was featured in the September 30th, 1963 Newsweek edition. The cover photo was a close-up of Mrs. Juanita Jones comforting Mrs. Chris McNair, the mother of one of the girls killed in the blast. McNair’s face is buried deep in Jones’s neck, as Jones clutches her in a tight embrace and stares with teary, hopeless eyes out into the distance. Beneath the photo reads the caption, “Bombing in Birmingham.” Lengthy magazine publications like Newsweek allowed space for extensive photography, so seven additional gripping photos were scattered throughout the seven-page article. One was a photo-copied picture of a sloppily colored-in drawing of a woman praying, found on the floor of the Sunday-school right after the bombing. Another was a photo from the window of the bombed church looking out onto the destroyed cars in the street, above the caption reading, “The blast: All of a sudden Sunday blew up.” Another was a picture of the city’s illuminated night skyline, accompanied by the caption, “Birmingham: In Vulcan’s shadow, a forge for hate and violence.” Every photograph was different, yet still added visual impact to the story. The photography may have lured readers in, but it was Trippett’s writing that hooked them for good. The article, entitled “Birmingham: ‘My God, You’re Not Even Safe in Church,’” opened with a poetic description of the seasons that “blossomed violently” into one another. They eventually “gave way to a time of darkening fears,” reaching its climax on that Sunday morning “full of the special quiet hustle that goes with getting the kids to Sunday school.” The eloquently written, yet brief figurative introduction sets the stage for the story’s featured anecdote: Miss Cynthia Wesley. The 14-year-old girl was one of the four girls killed in the bombing, and Trippett details her usual, but last, Sunday morning routine. Her and her father “did the dishes after a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and coffee before she got into her Sunday best – a ruffled white dress,” then “draped a red sweater over her shoulders, and quickly fed her cocker spaniel, Toots. Then she was ready.” Trippett employs the anecdote as a literary device to personalize the story and establish an emotional connection between the reader and Cynthia. Thus, when nationwide readers learn several paragraphs into the story that this sweet, harmless girl was destroyed in the explosion, feelings of sympathy, anger, and outrage are heightened. To non-Southerners, briefly getting to know Cynthia made the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing a heart-wrenching reality. The tragedy no longer seemed like another distant issue of the racially divided Birmingham, but a problem that was killing innocent little girls and needed to end once and for all. When Cynthia’s horrifying fate is revealed only several paragraphs after meeting her, Trippett broadens the scope of the article to introduce the main point: “Within hours, the explosion sent a shock wave of horror and outrage throughout the South, across the land, around the world. The blast had killed four little Negro girls. There was every sign it would add new intensity to the seething racial turmoil of Birmingham – where bombings have been a commonplace – new fervor to the Negro revolt, new impetus to lagging Federal civil-rights legislation.” Following previous desegregation attempts, including the 1960 sit-ins against segregated lunch counters and the 1961 Freedom Rides against segregated interstate bus-seating, the corrupt racial situation was still prevalent in 1963 Birmingham. However, it was eventually disregarded and swept under the rug amidst successful desegregationist movements in surrounding states. Trippett therefore, through such direct and succinct assertions, utilized the bombing as an opportunity to focus the nation’s attention back onto this city’s ongoing struggle. He fluidly incorporated quotes from progressive leaders into the article to support his main point derived from the church bombing. This includes quotes from Charles Longstreet Weltner, a young congressman from Atlanta, Georgia, who said, “It happened because those chosen to lead have failed to lead. Those whose task it is to speak have stood mute. And in so doing, we have permitted the voice of the South to preach defiance and disorder.” The following two pages graphically detailed the day and night’s violent street-fights between Negroes and whites, interwoven with factual information on how the government and city leaders took care of the situation. Trippett ended the first part of this “Bloody Sunday” article with a lengthy, powerful quote from arguably the most influential leader in the civil rights movement: Martin Luther King, Jr. The quote was from an epitaph for the four girls killed in the bombing, where King blamed the nation as a whole for Southern racial violence: “They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers…” And whether the King’s words ignited feelings of outrage and anger, or sympathy and motivation to help, readers were riveted and continued onto the second part of the article. The untold events of Birmingham history, concealed in remote and unknown city records, were revealed in “Case History of a Sick City.” The two-and-a-half pages addressed the straightforward question: “How was one to account for Birmingham 1963?” Trippett weeded through the bulk of Cumming and Fleming’s research to pinpoint the most important historic details that contributed to the climactic bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. He strung the events together into one cohesive, simple and descriptive timeline of guided factual accounts, divided into sections by bolded headings. He spruced up the facts with an assortment of literary devices to keep the reader hooked. For example, in describing Theophilus Eugene Connor, the embodiment of Birmingham power since his installation on the city commission in 1937, Trippet writes, “A jug-eared ex-baseball announcer, Bull exhibited the voice and grammar of a carnival barker…He possessed the sensibilities of a billy goat, and he became the city’s conscience.” The first section of “Case History of a Sick City,” entitled “Ballyhoo,” explained how Birmingham was the “off-spring of a rapacious industrialism and a supine South,” and “a loose, rowdy town of frequent fights with fists, knives, or guns.” From hungry, plentiful, and unorganized labor, to the establishment of fundamentally racist economic, political, and social dynamics, Trippett shed light on Birmingham’s history as it moved towards its “ugly destiny.” Further bolded sections of the article were entitled “The Murder Capital,” “Fear and Hoodlums,” and “Seeds of Hate,” – all titles which speak for themselves. A majority of Cumming and Fleming’s investigative reporting into the hidden racial details of Birmingham history were written into this second part of the article, including the 1908 riots. The same telegram from the Birmingham Downtowner Motel on September 19th also comprised extensive reports on the city’s first mayoral election between Albert Boutwell and Bull Connor in 1963. Although the so-called moderate Boutwell won the election, Cumming wrote that Connor “had a court suit going challenging the legality of them being removed from office before their term had expired in 1965,” and “the town seemed to have two mayors: Boutwell and Haynes. Thus, Connor was still doing business at the same old stand and was still in charge of handling the demonstrators.” This information was included in the article, as Trippett described the election “all came too late. Connor, protesting in court, was still in office last spring when the massive Negro demonstrations began…” Cumming and Fleming’s reports on the election dated back to the initial request from the “Citizens for Progress” group to reform city government. Although Trippett did center the recent accounts of Birmingham history on Bull Connor and the role he played in igniting the Negro revolution of 1963, he cut and simplified many of the disclosed facts and details. Entire pages of reports on aspects of Birmingham history, including those on the election and violent mineworker strikes, were not mentioned in the published article because of length limitations. However, even with such extensive edits, Trippett still managed to expose the truth about Birmingham’s ominously appalling racial history and motivate the nation to help this sick city. While the Newsweek coverage of the bombing was passionate, comprehensive, and eloquently written, daily newspaper coverage took a drastically different approach. This specifically applies to the Atlanta Daily World, founded in 1928 by William Alexander Scott II as the first black daily in the 20th century United States. The ADW became the major holding of the Scott Newspaper Syndicate of Atlanta that was established in 1931. The syndicate began printing additional black-owned newspapers across the nation, such as the twice-weekly Birmingham World and Memphis World. The national issues it covered encompassed lynching’s, police brutality, capital punishment, discrimination in the federal government, school segregation and the mistreatment of African American soldiers during World War II. As a community oriented paper, the ADW also featured social, church, and sports news. The Scott’s were politically conservative, gradualist, and solidly Republican Negroes. They were also incredibly reserved and reluctant to take a strong stance on Southern racial issues, so the newspaper was mainly neutral in overall tone as opposed to actively promoting Negro rights or attacking racism. However, the Scotts were consistent critics of Martin Luther King Jr., and vocally opposed his direct action crusades through the ADW and their other two newspapers. They believed blacks would more effectively improve their situation by working towards ending segregation in education, obtaining political and voting influence, and improving their economic situations rather than engaging in direct action protest. This is because they thought these forms of opposition were dangerous and people who were arrested would be negatively affected in the job market later. Thus, the Scotts limited their editors by frequently seizing the editorial voice of the paper. Top-editor Emory Jackson of the Birmingham World eventually became so frustrated by such restrictions that he asked them for the courtesy of a disclaimer atop the editorial to show Birmingham that it was handed down from the Scotts. After William was shot in 1934, Cornelius Adolphus Scott took over as the head of the ADW, and still held the position when the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing occurred. It was under him that the newspaper truly adopted its more conservative and Republican position, as reflected in its muted response to the bombing. The basic factual coverage of the tragedy consisted of seven articles in the paper’s September 17th and 18th issues, four of which were front-page and from UPI. The first of the four articles, entitled “Birmingham Bombing Kills Four Children,” opened with a somewhat dramatic description of the bombing’s aftermath. Robert Gordon of the UPI wrote, “The blast left only one of the church’s stained glass windows in its frame – a window depicting Christ leading a group of little children. The window was not undamaged, however, Christ’s face was blown out.” The story then continued onto page five informing readers about who died, the gunfire and fighting in the streets that followed the bombing, and a brief mention of “youth day at church.” The three other UPI articles were solely additional factual accounts about the following events, simply entitled, “’Bombing’ Victim Buried,” “Nationwide ‘Mourning’ Day Sought,” and “Pastor Tells How Bombing Left Church.” Each article succinctly elaborated on its title in no more than several paragraphs, excluding literary embellishments. The other three articles on the bombing, written by ADW staff-members, were also plainly stale. Opinions were expressed mainly through facts or quotes. The only staff-written article that was featured on the front-page, entitled “Empire Board Hits Bombing in Birmingham,” was two paragraphs. The first paragraph introduced the quote, and the second was the quote itself from W.L. Calloway, the president of the Board: “What else could be expected from the warped minds that have been fed a steady diet of disobedience of and respect for the law by those in authority in the state?...” The memorable quote was followed by another article on page six in the same September 17th issue. “18 Unsolved Racial Bombings in 6 years” was a two-column statistical record of each bombing, listed in chronological order. However, an opinionated conclusion was expressed on the basis of such facts: “The bombings should be a matter of personal concern to all citizens because their frequent occurrence says to the world that we are a city and country that has no respect for life property or human rights.” The article then suggested two approaches to the problem of unsolved bombings: “1. The apprehension, arrest and prosecution of the person or persons responsible for perpetrating any one of these cowardly acts of nighttime bombing. 2. Searching thought and prayer by all citizens that men’s hearts and minds can be freed of irrational hatred so that fear and terror can be banished from our community.” Although the suggestions are somewhat obvious, they demonstrate the presence of an editorial voice in the contents of the ADW. It was important that the Scott family show at least the slightest concern for the bombing tragedy and its victims, as well as the Southern fight for racial equality. After all, Negroes relied on the press, including the Scott Newspaper Syndicate, to play a role in the fight. In analyzing their coverage of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, it is obvious that Newsweek and the Atlanta Daily World were two news organizations with completely different objectives. The ADW provided simple and short, unadorned accounts of civil rights current events, with occasional editorial opinions provided. Newsweek not only provided current event updates, but also feature stories meant to evoke emotion, engage citizens, and promote public debate on particular national issues. These dissimilar objectives had to do with the organization’s size, number of staff members, and political stance, as well as the opinions of the owners and editors, the scope of the coverage, and the number of editions produced per week. The structure and aim of the two news organizations was significantly different, so it is not fair to judge which one’s coverage was “better.” Rather, one should conclude that they both complimented each other. The daily allowed the weekly its time to produce detailed feature stories, whereas the weekly relieved the daily of the burden to practice civic journalism and enabled them to just print the current facts. Thus, from Newsweek to the ADW, progressive news organizations contributed to the Civil Rights movement, no matter their structure or coverage approach. Works Cited Andrews, Robert M. "Nationwide "Mourning" Day Sought." United Press International 18 Sept. 1963: n. pag. Print. Daniel, Leon. "'Bombing' Victim Buried." United Press International 18 Sept. 1963: n. pag. Print. "Empire Board Hits Bombing In Birmingham." The Atlanta Daily World 17 Sept. 1963: 1. Print. "Funds To Rebuild Church Aid Victims' Kin Sought." The Atlanta Daily World 19 Sept. 1963: 1. Print. Gordon, Robert. "Birmingham Bombing Kills Four Children." United Press International 17 Sept. 1963: n. pag. Print. Letter from Joseph B. Cumming Jr. to Frank Trippett, September 19, 1963, Newsweek Magazine, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University. National Public Radio. "16th Street Baptist Church Bombing." Audio blog post. Npr.org. National Public Radio, 15 Sept. 2003. Web. 3 May 2013.
Nelson, Cary. "About the 1963 Birmingham Bombing." About the 1963 Birmingham Bombing. Modern American Poetry, n.d. Web. 03 May 2013. Report from Joseph B. Cumming and Karl Fleming to Frank Trippett, September 17, 1963, Newsweek Magazine, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University. Roberts, Gene, and Hank Klibanoff. The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and
The Learning Network. "Sept. 15, 1963 | Birmingham Church Is Bombed by Klansmen." The Learning Network Sept 15 1963 Birmingham Church Is Bombed by Klansmen Comments. The New York Times, 15 Sept. 2011. Web. 03 May 2013. Trippett, Frank. "Birmingham: 'My God, You're Not Even Safe in Church'" Newsweek 30 Sept. 1963: 20-23. Print. Trippett, Frank. "Case History of a Sick City." Newsweek 30 Sept. 1963: 23+. Print. United Press International. "Pastor Tells How Bombing Left Church." 18 Sept. 1963: n. pag. Print. "18 Unsolved Racial Bombings in 6 Years." The Atlanta Daily World 18 Sept. 1963: 6. Print. Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 36.02 Kb. Share with your friends:
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