The ASNE and Desegregation

Abstract

During the 1950s, the American Society of Newspaper Editors became the site of an ideological struggle between the racial status quo and the new social order envisioned by the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. This article examines the all-white ASNE in the years after Brown as the racial exclusivity of the organization and the profession it represented were both questioned and reaffirmed. Using a variety of primary source documents, including ASNE publications, convention transcripts, and members’ archival materials, this project isolates the ways in which the white prerogative reasserted itself through the exclusivity of the ASNE membership structure, the usage of regional history and identity by editors from the South, and the manipulation of the journalistic ideal of objectivity and First Amendment values.

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Notes on contributors

Gwyneth Mellinger

GWYNETH MELLINGER is a professor and chair of the Department of Mass Media and Communication at Baker University. This article was taken from a paper presented at the annual convention of the American Journalism Historians Association in 2005.