W6-7: Research

Due Oct 6 – Oct 15

Research—and a symptomatic artifact

This week and next we assemble primary sources toward the upcoming Presentation and Historical Essay.

Tue week 6: Research Proposal
First, in the comments below, propose a research topic for the upcoming presentation and essay, roughly in this format: “Given what we learned from scholar X about topic Y, I’d like to find out more about topic Y/question Z.” What kinds of primary sources might you draw upon? News articles? Movies? Oral history interviews? In casting about for a scholar to respond to, don’t forget about Christopher Strain’s The Long Sixties, which we read at the start of the semester. He makes a good default choice, since he covers the whole era. Van Gosse has a similarly broad focus.

Second, do just a little bit of primary source research, posting a news article or advertisement or political poster—some fragment of the past that offers insight into public attitudes on your topic.

Thu week 6: Puzzling Sources + 1967 Movie

Puzzling Sources

If you have any sources that really puzzle you, that can serve as a nucleus for research.

Post a puzzling source, if you have one you want us to look at in class. If you don’t have one so far, keep on the lookout and post one on Thursday.

Movie

Watch the 1967 Oscar-Winning movie In the Heat of the Night. It’s available on Amazon (free to Prime viewers), as a Youtube rental, on Google Play, on Vudu, and on Apple iTunes for $3 or $4, depending on platform. It’s available through the BU Library; you’ll need to log in after clicking this link: https://digitalcampus-swankmp-net.ezproxy.bu.edu/bu334689/play/4E5324965CEA7F2C

Post ONE of the following below (choose which one to post based on what others haven’t covered):

  1. A memorable line
  2. A focal scene
  3. A key theme of the work, something which might serve as a starting point for answering the question, “What is this movie about?”
  4. An event or political controversy that might impact how we understand this movie, which won 7 Oscars (including Best Picture and Best Actor) in 1967.

Thu week 7: Puzzling Sources + Movie Redux

More Puzzling Sources

If you didn’t post a puzzling source last time, post one for us to look at today.

The Movie, Redux in Relation to Contextual Sources

Look at the following sources, choose one that strikes you as potentially interesting for In the Heat of the Night, and post your thoughts (briefly) below.

  1. Life Magazine’s coverage of the Mar 1965 Selma-Montgomery March (pp 30-37)
  2. Life’s coverage of the Aug 1965 Watts Riots (pp 20-34)
  3. Life’s June 1966 (p 94) and May 1967 (p 76A-82) profiles of Stokely Carmichael of SNCC.
  4. Renata Adler’s Mar 1968 NYTimes piece on trends for Black roles in American cinema (p 94).

45 responses to “W6-7: Research”

    • Given what Camille Paglia argues about spiritual seeking and cosmic consciousness in the American 1960s counterculture, I’d like to find out more about how media coverage constructed the “cult threat” and the specific question of whether media panic about new religious movements was driven by documented practices or by a moral panic framework established by the Manson Family murders

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    • Given what Christopher Strain argues about the rise of Chicano activism and minority empowerment during the Long Sixties, I’d like to find out more about how media coverage constructed César Chávez as the public face of the United Farm Workers movement, and specifically whether this heroic portrayal overlooked the contributions of other organizers and more complicated aspects of Chávez’s leadership. I would like to compare contemporary newspaper and Time magazine coverage of Chávez, the UFW strikes, boycotts, and protests with modern media coverage around Chavez now that have reconsidered his legacy.

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    • Given what Flora Davis says about the prevalence of socialism in the women’s liberation movement, I would like to find out more about how this very prevalence affected the movement in post-Red Scare America. I would like to look at how prominent news sources and editorials talked about the women’s liberation movement and their tactics, ideas, and progress.

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    • Based on Christopher Strain’s analysis of the Stonewall Uprising as when “the gay rights movement began,” resulting in a “new, bolder emphasis on direct action,” I would like to cover the events of the Stonewall Riots of June 28, 1969 in more detail (Strain 157). Most of the sources I have found so far have been written (newspapers, magazines), but I would like to find a more diverse set of primary sources, especially any materials that stemmed from the newly-reinvigorated gay rights movement of the era.

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    • Given what Christopher Strain recounts about the Space Technology and the overall space program, I’d like to explore more about the impact that the Space Race had on American Culture.

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    • Given what we learned from Van Gosse about the Civil Rights Movement and the various protests that were used to push the movement (and the others following), I’d like to learn more about how these protests were organized, how they were viewed by the public and the government, and their impacts both socially and legally. An effective way to learn more about the protests during this time would be using primary sources such as newspapers and movies.

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    • Given Strain’s account of women’s rights activism specifically involving sexual violence and the reframing of its criminality, I would like to learn more about organizations like the New York Radical Feminists, who redefined rape and the power dynamics behind its perception, and set up resources to help victims of sexual violence like rape crisis centers and hotlines. I would like to look into different media from the New York Radical Feminists, such as recorded interviews and published books, to understand the reframing of rape and sexual violence as it happened in real time in the 60s and 70s.

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    • Given what Christopher Strain argues about the Civil Rights Movement and the growing use of direct action during the Long Sixties, I’d like to find out more about the Greensboro sit-ins of 1960. Specifically, I want to look at how the sit-ins were viewed by the public and the media at the time, and whether they changed attitudes toward segregation and protest.

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    • Given what we learned from Van Gosse from The Movements of the New Left about Black Power movements, I’d like to find out more about SNCC and the growth of the organization. I would like to look into how the organization started, the people who were involved and how the organization had such a great impact on the Black Power movement.

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    • From our previous studies on the way grassroots movements were challenging institutional authority as described by Christopher Strain in The Long Sixties, I would like to examine how psychiatry of the 1960s, along with mainstream journalism and homophile activists, were contesting the scientific description of the “homosexual mind.” While the period was known for the countercultural movement and the revolutionary event of Stonewall of 1969, the authority of psychiatry was among the most widespread tools of social regulation in the decade. I am eager to examine the role of mainstream media in translating psychoanalysis into public paranoia, the way the medical establishment perceived homosexuality as a personal problem rather than a matter of civil rights, and how gay activists used scientific knowledge to question the diagnosis

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  2. Primary Sources

    Post just one, with a comment about why it’s interesting / what it tells us about the era.

    ⤹Click the reply button just below.

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    • Attachment  We-are-Accused_-Framed-Letters-to-the-Editor_-Los-Acusan-y-Cart.pdf

      For my initial primary source, I found a 1968 article written by César Chávez in “El Malcriado”, the newspaper associated with the farmworker movement. In “We Are Accused: Framed,” Chávez responds to accusations that the movement was violent and argues that the actions and goals of farmworkers were being misrepresented. This source interests me because it allows me to compare the way Chávez and the UFW portrayed themselves with the way mainstream newspapers and magazines portrayed them. It could help me investigate how much of Chávez’s public image was shaped by his own movement and how much was constructed by outside media coverage.

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    • https://books.google.com/books.....38;f=false

      I found these editorials by successful women to be interesting because they show how many women thought about feminism at the time. Many of these women express how they fought for what they had, pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and worked hard. Many condemned women’s lib activists because they felt that they were complaining about a problem that didn’t exist. All of this is sentiment (which is still shared by many women today) and demonstrated to me how the socialist tendencies of the women’s liberation movement alienated some women, especially the women who were able to benefit from capitalism and who had found a successful career for themselves within the system.

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    • Attachment  document-3.pdf

      For one of my Primary Sources, I am liking this article as a “Pro-Space” perspective. Firstly, the title is very Pro-exploration, as it mentions “the head of space agency”, which adds some credibility. This NYT article is interesting, as it shows how the country needs to move to master space flight to better the U.S. economy, and the U.S. is in the perfect spot to do so given the influx of technology. This article sort of outlines the roadmap, and gives Americans a perspective plan (written in 1961 – 8 years before Apollo 11). This will allow Americans to judge for themselves what they think about the Space Program, which I hope to analyze.

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    • Attachment  Segregation_Protests_Held_em.pdf

      One primary source that may be useful for my project is this primary source from the New York Times. This source addresses how Kansas City Schools had begun resegregating after the Brown v. Boe ruling and as a result hundreds of people marched to protest. Their goal was to force have the board integrated to provide representation for the students of color who were falling victim to the resegregation. This source interests me because overt segregation is largely considered and issue of the 1950’s and it often overlooked as a reason for protests during the civil rights movement.

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    • One primary source that I found, which gave me a decent overview of the actual, night-to-night events of the Stonewall Riots and the days after was the testimony of Village Voice journalist Lucian Truscott IV. Found in the New York Public Library’s Stonewall Reader, an anthology series covering the before, during, and after of the Stonewall Riots, Truscott’s testimony gives a concise overview of the events of the Riots and, more importantly, highlights the shift in attitude from before Stonewall to after. One of the most striking quotes in the testimony came from Allen Ginsberg, who remarked that the protestors had “…‘lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago” (149). The anthology contains a treasure trove of primary source documents that I am looking forward to working with.

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    • https://archive.org/details/pa.....-BB3958.04
      This is a rebroadcast of an interview from the 1970s from the series “Womankind”, in which the hostess interviews 4 members of the New York Radical Feminists. These women in the interview argue that rape is not an off-chance crime committed by a crazy person, but a commonly used political crime that assists in upholding the patriarchy system. I find this source especially interesting because listening to the interview, I am not only able to understand the precedents and stereotypes that were set in this time period through examining the questions asked by the interviewer, but also able to further see the complexities of the issues through interpretation of tone and emotion.

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    • https://www.cbsnews.com/news/g.....c-protest/
      For my primary source, I found a 2025 CBS News interview with Joseph McNeil, one of the four students who participated in the Greensboro sit-in in 1960. Although the article was published recently, McNeil is giving a firsthand account of his experience during the protest. He describes the fear that he and the other students felt but explains that they continued returning to the lunch counter because they were committed to their cause. I could use McNeil’s account to compare the protesters’ perspective with how newspapers and other media portrayed the sit-ins.

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    • Attachment

      The issue of homosexuality was brought up by The New York Times right on the newspaper’s front page on December 17, 1963. The story did not view the topic just as one related to vice and city corruption but, rather, as an example of the new consensus regarding homosexuality as a medical or psychological phenomenon. Sub-headline stated: “Key to Problem Called Medical; Police Commissioner Finds Crime Aspect Secondary.”

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    • Attachment  Report-on-Demonstration-at-the-Capitol-Club-Little-Rock-Arkansas.pdf

      This document is a report on what happened on March 11, 1965 during a demonstration. I found this interesting because it is a direct account of what happened during this event explaining in detail what happened after the event as well. Additionally, I found this interesting since it shows their perseverance. Even though there was the possibility of them being met with violence, they continued to work towards their goal of no segregation.

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    • One specific line that stood out to me was when Endicott says “There was a time when I could’ve had you shot.” Directed towards Tibbs, this line was the most blatant indication of just how far America had come by this time. Endicott’s character is one of the wealthy, racist, plantation owner, who has a huge superiority complex, and this line exemplifies that he still feels that he is better than the northern detective. The context that the line is said in also makes it more important; Tibbs just returned Endicott’s slap, and the cotton company owner was shocked and dismayed at the action.

      Moreover, it is important to note the progress of the Civil Rights Movement/liberal mindedness of the production company, because this movie portrayed Endicott with a rather negative connotation and Tibbs with a positive one. Allowing a black man to slap a white man on screen without punishment reflected a shift in the ideas of the time.

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    • A memorable line from In the Heat of the Night was, “You’re so damned smart, you’re smarter than any white man. You’re just gonna stay here and show us all.You’ve got such a big head, you could never live with yourself unless you could put us all to shame” (52:22). I found this line memorable since the Chief’s perspective starts to shift at this point as he starts to realize how important Virgil truly is to figuring out this case. In a way he is admitting that he believes Virgil is “smarter than any white man”, but it is also showing how there is still a negative point of view towards Virgil in this situation.

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    • One notable scene in In the Heat of the Night marks the beginning of the reluctant partnership between Gillespie and Tibbs. After Sparta, Mississippi’s mayor intervenes in the investigation of the murder of Mr. Colbert, Chief Gillespie is forced to recruit Tibbs to further investigate the case. Meeting him at the train station before Tibbs is scheduled to leave, the two engage in a conversation which marks some of the key tensions of the film, notably the tension between the Southern Gillespie, and the Northern Tibbs, along with the attitudes and institutions they implicitly represent. Tibbs, despite his obvious professionalism in contrast to the slow-moving and stagnant Spartan police, becomes exasperated, remarking that he’s “had [Gillespie’s] town up to here” (51:42). However, after Gillespie claps back with a remark about horsewhipping Tibbs, the ice between them thaws as Tibbs remarks that “[his] father used to say that” (51:54). The scene ends with the two of them agreeing to work together, even if the two are both highly reluctant to do so. Even in the face of their seemingly irreconcilable worldviews and institutional backgrounds – that of what essentially boils down to a small-town sheriff versus the big-city cop – the two can find something to laugh about.

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    • A scene that really stood out to me was when Virgil slapped Endicott after he hit him, and then the chaos that ensued from that. This stood out to me because it showed Virgil’s self-respect and resilience. He was not going to be pushed around by these racist southerners; he was there to do a job, and he was going to do it. By slapping him back, Virgil demonstrated that they were equals whether Endicott liked it or not, which he very much did not. This assertion of equality upset the townspeople because it upset their status quo, which makes this scene even more important, because it led to the increased harassment of Virigil thorughout the movie.

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    • A focal scene that stood out to me was when Virgil Tibbs is arrested and questioned after the murder of Mr. Colbert. Tibbs is actually a highly experienced police detective from Philadelphia, but the local police immediately assume that he could be involved in the murder. What stood out to me was how little evidence they need before treating him as a suspect. Once Tibbs explains that he is a police officer, the situation changes, but the other officers still do not treat him with much respect. I think this scene is important because it introduces one of the main conflicts of the movie. Tibbs is trying to investigate a murder, but he also has to deal with the racism and assumptions of the people around him.

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    • A focal scene in the film I found interesting was the scene where Virgil was incarcerated with Harvey Oberst. Specifically I found that Harvey was initially hostile in having Virgil in the cell with him, and how he believed it was Virgil’s fault – only confirming the stereotypes and the racism which this movie plays so much upon. I found it interesting that they tried to jail Virgil for “withholding evidence”, despite them already knowing that Virgil was an outstanding detective and was their only lead into solving the case. It is only after Virgil shows his police badge where he is finally understood by Harvey.

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    • One of the most powerful scenes in In the Heat of the Night (1967) is when Virgil Tibbs confronts Eric Endicott, a wealthy white plantation owner, during the murder investigation. When Endicott slaps Tibbs across the face, expecting him to accept the humiliation, Tibbs immediately slaps him back. What makes this scene especially significant is not just Tibbs’s reaction, but Endicott’s complete shock that a Black man would challenge his authority. The exchange reveals how deeply racial hierarchy was embedded in Southern society, where white individuals expected their power to go unquestioned. I also found it interesting how Sheriff Gillespie reacts, seemingly caught between the racist social expectations of his community and his growing respect for Tibbs. Considering the film was released during the Civil Rights Movement, I think this scene represents a larger challenge to the racial power structures that had historically defined American society. Rather than simply portraying racism as individual prejudice, the film shows how racism is maintained through expectations of obedience and unequal power.

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    • The movie is about solving the crime of who killed Mr. Colbert. Mr. Colbert was a rich man planning to build a much-needed factory in Mississippi, but one night was found dead in the middle of the street. While officer Sam Wood is searching town for suspects and any evidence he comes across Virgil Tepes, a northern African-American that serves as a policeman in his town, who had been visiting his mother. Tepes is brought in to the office and accused of committing the crime but when Wood and his chief Officer Gillespie discover Tepes himself is also a policeman, he is let off the hook and joins the Sparta officers in their search for the real killer. A theme in in the movie is that prejudice and hate can be very detrimental while attempts at unity can bring about much more progress. When Virgil is left out of the process earlier in the movie, due to the prejudice the officers have towards black people, they end up wrongfully arresting an innocent man. Additionally, the Sparta police struggle to identify the time of death or make much of any progress alone. However, when the police open up to take help from Virgil the case begins moving undeniably quicker. Although, the attitudes and willingness of the police to accept Virgil shifts back and forth between hostile and openness, it is clear that much more progress is made when they allow Virgil to be involved in the progress

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    • There are several things that struck me in both the ideas of this article, as well as their presentation. From the opening statement, we can see Adler’s passion for arts criticism, as well as the portrayal of Black individuals with a specific characterization within film.

      It is interesting to me that she brings up how unrealistic the films that were being made at the time were to the Black American’s daily life, and she implores that a more realistic film should be made. Later, she names several such movies, including “In the Heat of the Night”, and she acknowledges their lack of realism, (more so in the other films than “In the Heat of the Night.”)

      She argues that the presentation of Black Americans (even if it is in an unrealistic way) as protagonists, as in “In the Heat of the Night” is vital because it brings about the first ideas of Black excellence, and gives audiences an example of things that the general Black American could strive for. Adler specifically discusses Sidney Poitier’s role as Tibbs, describing him as a more intelligent, educated, and refined than the white people in the south. She points out that Tibbs is able to challenge the prejudices of the people he encounters, making his character an example of how Black actors were beginning to move beyond stereotypical roles in Hollywood.

      The article raises important questions about how Black characters were represented in American cinema during the Civil Rights Movement, and the shift from the previously typical portrayal of Black Americans as a whole was shifting in both reality as well as on the screen.

      Nonetheless, there is was also a criticism of the stereotyping in the opposite direction. Adler mentions Tibbs’s success depends partly on his exceptional intelligence and professionalism, raising the question of whether audiences were ready to accept Black characters who did not have to prove themselves to earn respect.

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