In January 2007, NCMR / The National
Conference for Media Reform, convened in Memphis, TN. Memphis
is the home of the National Civil Rights Museum housed in the former
Lorraine Motel - the hallowed ground upon which The Reverend Dr Martin
Luther King was assassinated in 1968... by a single individual or an
entire society is still, and will be, argued for generations.
Perhaps the civil rights movement - and
particularly Dr King's brilliant strategies on how to confront it
- is the true progenitor of the US Media upheaval. That upheaval
continues today in a negative swing of the pendulum. Certainly
before King, there was no mention in the popular parlance of a "liberal
media" that must be ridiculed, suppressed and eliminated -
questioned on its patriotism and condemned for stating the truths that
millions of Americans already know yet continue to deny.
This panel brings together accomplished media and
civil rights scholars and activists to discuss the relationship of the
media to the struggle for civil rights and social justice and the
unique role that Dr King played in focusing the eye of American media
on "The Negro Problem" and finally forcing the fundamental change that
America avoided for centuries.
The panel included - in order of appearance
Professor Leonard Baynes / Moderator / St Johns
Univ School of Law / Director - Ronald Brown Ctr for Civil Rights &
Economic Development
Hon D'Army Bailey / Jurist / nominee to TN Supreme
Court / founder National Civil Rights Museum
Dr Charles McKinney / Rhodes College Dept of
History /
Founding member and Senior Fellow of The Jamestown Project
Mark Lloyd / Author - Prologue to a Farce / Center
for American Progress / presently VP for Strategic Initiatives at
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Dr Mara Einstein / Author - Brands of Faith / Prof
of Media Studies Queens College (click Faculty/Mara Einstein)
Click here
for World Association for Christian Communication Click here for Nashville Post interview with D'Army Bailey on his TN Supreme
Court nomination Click here for Democracy Now! interview with Vincent Harding Click here for Silence is Violence New Orleans grassroots activists Click here for DM online call for new FBI investigation into deaths of Chaney
Goodman & SchwernerRecommended
Reading
