【往期回顾】
【本期内容】
The power of the press
新闻媒体的力量
The Freedom Rides were successful in large part because they were able to engage the media and gain a sympathetic national audience. A handful of reporters and photographers from the black press and one freelance writer affiliated with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) accompanied the Riders on the buses during CORE's original May 4 Freedom Ride. Other than these journalists, initial news coverage of the Rides was mixed or strongly negative. Early news accounts criticized "extremists on both sides," equating civil rights activists with their segregationist opposition. Other editorials characterized the Freedom Riders as "outside agitators," meddling in communities to which they did not belong - although many of the African-American Riders had been raised in the South.
自由乘车者运动之所以成功，很大程度上是因为他们能够吸引媒体，并获得全国观众的同情。少数来自黑人媒体的记者和摄影师，以及一名隶属于种族平等大会的自由撰稿人，在种族平等大会最初的5月4日自由乘车运动中陪同乘客乘坐公交车。除了这些记者之外，最初关于自由乘车运动的新闻报道是喜忧参半或较为负面的。早期的新闻报道批评了“双方的极端分子”，将民权活动家等同于他们的种族隔离主义反对派。其他社论将“自由乘车者”定性为“外部煽动者”，混入不属于他们的社圈——尽管许多非裔美国自由乘车者是在南方长大的。
The images and eyewitness accounts of May 14, 1961 changed the country's consciousness. Footage of a burning bus in Anniston, AL shocked the nation, as did photographs of the beatings inflicted during the riot at the Birmingham Trailways Bus Station and of the bandaged face of Freedom Rider James Peck lying in a hospital bed. These pictures were unlike anything that Americans had seen previously. Images brought home the brutality of the white segregationist regime in a way that words alone could not convey. Klan members attacked Birmingham Post-Herald photographer Tommy Langston along with other members of the media and attempted to destroy their film; miraculously, the roll of film inside Langston's smashed camera survived intact.
1961年5月14日的情景和目击者的描述改变了这个国家的意识。阿拉巴马州安尼斯顿一辆燃烧的公交车的视频震惊了全国，在伯明翰Trailways巴士站骚乱期间遭到殴打的照片以及躺在病床上的自由乘车者詹姆斯·派克因伤包扎的脸部的照片也震惊了全国。这些照片与美国人以前看到的任何照片都不一样。这些照片以一种仅靠语言无法传达的方式，使得白人种族隔离主义政权的残暴家喻户晓。三K党成员袭击了《伯明翰先驱邮报》摄影师汤米·兰斯顿和其他媒体成员，并试图销毁他们的影像；奇迹般的是，兰斯顿被砸碎的相机里的胶卷完好无损地保存了下来。
Similarly, the impassioned eyewitness account of Howard K. Smith, a native Southerner who had traveled to Birmingham to investigate allegations of lawlessness and racial intimidation from a neutral perspective helped shift public opinion. Just a few hours after the riot, he delivered his report over the national CBS radio network. Smith described a scene where "one passenger was knocked down at my feet by twelve of the hoodlums and his face was beaten and kicked until it was a bloody pulp." In the end, Smith abandoned journalistic objectivity, warning of "a dangerous confusion in the Southern mind" while calling for legal change and presidential action to improve the situation.
同样，霍华德·K·史密斯是一名土生土长的南方人，他曾前往伯明翰，从中立的角度调查无法无天和种族恐吓的指控，目击者对此的慷慨激昂的描述帮助改变了公众舆论。就在骚乱发生几小时后，他通过哥伦比亚广播公司的全国广播网发表了自己的报道。史密斯描述了一个场景，“一名乘客被十二名流氓撞倒在我的脚边，他的脸被拳打脚踢，直到变得血肉模糊。”最后，史密斯放弃了新闻客观性，警告称“南方人的思想存在危险的混乱”，同时呼吁法律改革和总统采取行动来改善这种情况。
While accounts of the Freedom Rides in the white Southern press remained sharply negative and mocking, national media coverage became more favorable in the days that followed. Jim Peck gave an interview on NBC's Today Show. The June 2, 1961 issue of Time magazine featured the Freedom Rides as its cover story and was openly sympathetic in its coverage. Life magazine also chose the Freedom Riders as its "story of the week" for the June 2 issue, including powerful images from the siege of the First Baptist Church.
尽管南方白人媒体对自由乘车者运动的报道仍然是负面的和嘲讽的，但在随后的几天里，全国媒体的报道变得更加有利于运动了。吉姆·佩克接受了美国全国广播公司《今日秀》的采访。1961年6月2日的《时代》杂志以自由乘车者运动为封面故事，并在报道中公开表示同情。《生活》杂志还选择自由乘车者运动作为6月2日的“本周故事”，其中包括第一浸信会教堂被围困时的震撼情景。
News reporters and photographers accompanied the Freedom Riders through most of the Rides' key events, from the May 21 riot and threatened mob violence in Montgomery, AL all the way to the tense National Guard escort through Mississippi on May 24 and the breach of peace arrests that followed upon the Freedom Riders' arrival in Jackson. Movement leaders of the 1960s quickly absorbed the Freedom Riders' example; the most effective and best-remembered campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement were those where the news media captured iconic images that the nation found impossible to ignore.
新闻记者和摄影师陪同自由乘车者经历了运动的大部分关键事件，从5月21日发生在阿拉巴马州蒙哥马利的暴乱和暴徒暴力威胁，一直到5月24日国民警卫队在密西西比州的紧张护送，以及自由乘车者抵达杰克逊后发生的破坏和平的逮捕事件。20世纪60年代的运动领导人很快学习了自由乘车者运动的榜样；民权运动中最有效、最令人难忘的运动是那些新闻媒体捕捉到全民无法忽视的标志性形象。
【Source】www.pbs.org
【Translated by】Spark Liao (廖怀宝)
【Illustration】From Bing
