Lecture and Exhibit at UA Address Civil Rights Struggle and the Press

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — As part of The University of Alabama celebration of African-American Heritage Month, the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library will host guest speaker Hank Klibanoff, managing editor for news at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and co-author of “The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation” (Knopf, 2006), who will talk about his book and his research on the Civil Rights era and the media Tuesday, Feb. 13 at 4:30 p.m.

Camille Elebash, professor emerita in the UA College of Communication and Information Sciences, will introduce Klibanoff and speak about her experiences with media coverage of George Wallace’s “stand in the schoolhouse door” on the UA campus in June 1963.

An exhibit “They Came … They Saw … They Reported : Images from the World Press Coverage of Segregation’s Last Stand at The University of Alabama” featuring a series of photographs is also on display in the lobby of the Hoole Library and includes candid images of what was called by many as “the highest-level press corps ever assembled” to date. Elebash covered the press coverage for her newspaper, The Graphic, a Tuscaloosa weekly that was published from the 1950s-1980s, owned and operated by Elebash and her husband Karl Elebash.

The exhibit was developed by Jessica Lacher-Feldman along with Mary-Keeley McAllister, a UA broadcast journalism major and student assistant at the Hoole Library. McAllister also assisted Klibanoff in his research for the book.

The exhibit will be on display through February and the rest of the spring semester.

The event will begin at 4:30 p.m. with an open house, exhibit viewing and book signing in the Hoole Library lobby, and at 5:15 p.m., Elebash and Klibanoff will speak in the Hoole Library’s Gandrud Reading Room.

Additional book signing and exhibit viewing opportunities will follow the lecture. Books will be available for sale in the lobby courtesy of the UA Supply Store.

The event is free and open to the public.

The W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library is located on the 2nd floor of Mary Harmon Bryant Hall on campus. For additional information, contact Jessica Lacher-Feldman at 205/348-0500 or at archives@bama.ua.edu. The event is co-sponsored by University Libraries and The Summersell Center for the Study of the South.