Elon’s School of Communications will
host a conference titled “In the Midst of a Movement:
The South, the Press, and Civil Rights” on Thursday,
October 5 in Whitley Auditorium.
The conference will feature four sessions
with journalists and scholars who wrote about and studied the
civil rights movement, southern culture, and the relationship
between race and the media. The purpose of the
conference is to generate a deeper understanding of how the
Civil Rights movement, the South, and the media all converged
during this era.  The first session addresses reporting in the
segregated South. Dorothy Butler Gilliam and Moses
Newson are the featured speakers. Gilliam was the first
female African-American writer for the Washington Post.
Newson wrote for African-American newspapers, such as the
Tri-State Defender.
The second session covers reporting of
nonviolent movements during the Civil Rights era. The
featured speakers include Karl Flemming and Norman
Lumpkin. Flemming reported for Newsweek in the early
1960s and recently wrote an autobiography titled Son of the
Rough South: An Uncivil Memoir. Lumpkin worked for a
television station in Alabama where he became their first
African-American reporter. The third session addresses how journalism
spurred change in the South. Jerry Mitchell and Tom
Terry are the featured speakers. Mitchell’s
reporting for The Clarion Ledger helped authorities find and
arrest four members of the Ku Klux Klan. Terry will
discuss the work of North Carolina journalist Horace
Carter. As a conclusion to the conference, the final
session features all of the speakers in a panel presentation
of “The Press and Civil Rights Activism.”
Civil rights activist Tom Gaither will join the
journalists to discuss their experiences living and reporting
during the Civil Rights movement. Professors from Duke University, Georgia
Southern University, North Carolina A&T State University,
and North Carolina State University will moderate the
sessions. The School of Communications will sponsor the
conference along with the Elon Fund for Excellence in the
Arts and Sciences, the Elon Department of History and
Geography, North Carolina A&T State University, and the
North Carolina Humanities Council.
Schedule of Events: 8:30 am to 9:40 am (Session
1)
Early Stories: Reporting in the
Segregated South 10:30 am to 11:45 am (Session
2)
Covering the Nonviolent Civil Rights
Movement 2:20 pm to 3:35 pm (Session
3)
Journalism as an Agent for
Change 4:15 pm to 5:30 pm (Session
4)
Panel Discussion: The Press and Civil
Rights Activism
*All Sessions Held in Whitley Auditorium,
Elon University Public Welcome
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