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FEATURE STORIES
AMERICA @ 250: A BLACK RETROSPECTIVE
The Morgan Global Journalism Review( MGJR) is an online quarterly published by the School of Global Journalism & Communication at Morgan State University. MGJR’ s mission is to promote journalistic excellence and provide reporting and analysis of media and communications trends, issues and events from an international perspective.
PUBLISHER Jackie Jones
EDITOR DeWayne Wickham
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Aisha Powell Norris West Benjamin Davis Tonyaa Weathersbee Diane Harris Addis Romero
COPY EDITOR Osaretin Iyare
DESIGNER Sherry Poole Clark
TECHNICAL SUPPORT Ivery Johnson
WEBMASTER Henry McEachnie
CONTACT US: Morgan Global Journalism Review Email: jacqueline. jones @ morgan. edu
Morgan State University Communication Center 363 Baltimore, MD 21251 Phone:( 443) 885-3502
AMERICA AT
10 1776 – 1825: A GOVERNMENT FOR WHITE MEN ONLY The men who proclaimed“ all men are created equal” enslaved hundreds— and engineered a nation where liberty was reserved for the few.
16 1826 – 1875: WHO SPOKE FOR US? From the birth of the Black press to the battlefields of the Civil War, the fight to make America live up to its founding promise was led— and won— by Black Americans.
20 1876 – 1925: JIM CROW, BLACK CODES AND BASEBALL A‘ stolen election’ ended Reconstruction, a Supreme Court decision made segregation the law, and a baseball game between a Negro League team and the Klu Klux Klan shaped this period.
24 1926 – 1975:“ A WHITE MAN’ S WAR, A BLACK MAN’ S FIGHT” A Black security guard noticed a piece of tape on a door lock— and brought down a president.
29 1976 – 2025: BATTLING TO BELONG IN A NATION BUILT ON OUR BACKS From Richard Pryor’ s searing comedy to the election of Barack Obama and the dismantling of a slavery exhibit at the site of this nation’ s creation, the struggle by Blacks for full share of the American dream continues.
SPECIAL SECTIONS
4 DEANS CORNER Jackie Jones is the Dean School of Global Journalism and Communication
8 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR DeWayne Wickham is the Dean Emeritus, and Director Center for New Media and Strategic Initiatives, School of Global Journalism and Communication
35 PAGES FROM THE ARCHIVES Jesse Jackson and the NAACP: It was called“ a glorious marriage,” but it ended in divorce.
39 BOOKSMART Bibb Country, Unearthing My Family Secrets of Land, Legacy – and Lettuce Lonnae O’ Neal went looking for her roots and found a lettuce empire built on slavery.
Under the Sun: A Black Journalist’ s Journey Harold Jackson grew up Black and poor in Birmingham, Alabama, at the height of the civil rights movement and became a Pulitzer-Prize winning voice for racial justice.
43 MOVIE REVIEW: The Birth of a Nation( 1915) and Within Our Gates( 1920) At the beginning of the 20th Century, D. W. Griffith used cinema to defend White supremacy – and Oscar Micheaux, America’ s most prolific Black filmmaker pushed back.
44 TRANSITIONS( 1.) Charles Robinson was never off the clock – and the students, lawmakers and stories he left behind prove it.( 2.) Micheal I. Days spent a lifetime in journalism— and spent just as much of it serving others.
COVER IMAGE ID: Robert Hemings, Frederick Douglass, Jessie Fauset, Rosa Parks, Barack Obama
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