The Selling of Civil Rights: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Use of Public Relations (Studies in African American History and Culture)

The Selling of Civil Rights: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Use of Public Relations (Studies in African American History and Culture) Review

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The Selling of Civil Rights: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Use of Public Relations (Studies in African American History and Culture) Feature

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee formed in April 1960 to advance civil rights. With a tremendous human rights mission facing them, the founding SNCC members included communication and publicity as part of their initial purpose. This book provides a broad overview of these efforts from SNCC's birth in 1960 until the beginning of its demise in the late 1960s and examines the communication tools that SNCC leaders and members used to organize, launch, and carry out their campaign to promote civil rights throughout the 1960s. It specifically explores how SNCC workers used public relations to support and promote their platforms and to build a grassroots community movement; and how the organization later rejected these strategies for a radical and isolated approach.

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Public Executions: From Ancient Rome to the Present Day

Public Executions: From Ancient Rome to the Present Day Review

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Public Executions: From Ancient Rome to the Present Day Feature

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Triumph of Order: Democracy and Public Space in New York and London (Columbia History of Urban Life)

Triumph of Order: Democracy and Public Space in New York and London (Columbia History of Urban Life) Review

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Triumph of Order: Democracy and Public Space in New York and London (Columbia History of Urban Life) Feature

In an effort to create a secure urban environment in which residents can work, live, and prosper with minimal disruption, New York and London established a network of laws, policing, and municipal government in the nineteenth century aimed at building the confidence of the citizenry and creating stability for economic growth. At the same time, these two world cities attempted to maintain an expansive level of free speech and assembly, concepts deeply ingrained in both national cultures. As democracy expanded in tandem with the size of the cities themselves, the two goals clashed, resulting in tensions over their compatibility.

The results of this clash continue to resonate in our society today. Treating nineteenth-century London and New York as case studies, Lisa Keller examines the critical development of sanctioned free speech, controlled public assembly, new urban regulations, and the quelling of riots, all in the name of a proper regard for order. Drawing on rich archival sources that include the unpublished correspondence of government officials and ordinary citizens, Keller paints an intimate portrait of daily life in these two cities and the intricacies of their emerging bureaucracies. She finds that New York eventually settled on a policy of preempting disruption before it occurred, while London chose a path of greater tolerance toward street activities.

Dividing her history into five categories—cities, police and militia, the public, free speech and assembly, and the law—Keller concludes with an assessment of freedom in these cities today and asks whether the scales have been tipped too strongly on the side of order and control. Public officials increasingly use permits, fees, and bureaucratic hassles to frustrate the ability of reformers and protesters to make their voices heard, and by doing so, she argues, they strike at the very foundations of democracy.

(2/1/09)

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What's Fair on the Air?: Cold War Right-Wing Broadcasting and the Public Interest

What's Fair on the Air?: Cold War Right-Wing Broadcasting and the Public Interest Review

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