Broadcasting Freedom: Radio War and the Politics of Race, 1938-1948 » (1st Edition)

Recovers the importance of 1940s radio to the quest for racial equality in America. The public programming campaigns of activists, government officials, and intellectual leaders heightened awareness of racial issues and helped start the civil rights campaign of the 1950s and 1960s.

Library Journal

As the first national mass medium, radio emerged as a forum for debating racial injustice. Savage (history, Univ. of Pennsylvania) focuses on national public affairs programming from 1938 to 1948 and explores the interactions of radio, race, and politics. Tracing the origins, content, and reception of selected programs, Savage reveals the battle lines and hardworking heroes of the struggle to assure blacks a popularly accessible and politically acceptable place in the discourse of U.S. history and culture. Her deft treatment of the activists, programming, public policies, and symbolic politics broadens views of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and pioneers new scholarship in radios rich but virtually ignored historical role. Savages work complements Melvin Patrick Elys The Adventures of Amos N Andy: A Social History of an American Phenomenon (Free Pr., 1991. o.p.), Herman Grays Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness (Univ. of Minnesota, 1995), and Sasha Torress Living Color: Race and Television in the United States (Duke Univ., 1998). Highly recommended.Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe