Making #Charlottesville: Media from Civil Rights to Unite the Right

by Aniko Bodroghkozy

Overview

The 2017 "Summer of Hate" in Charlottesville became a worldwide media event, putting at center stage the resurgence of emboldened and empowered white supremacy and "alt-right" extremism, as well as the antiracist movement opposing it. Aniko Bodroghkozy’s trenchant study examines this formative moment in recent U.S. history by juxtaposing it against two other epochal moments that put American racism and the struggle against it on worldwide display: the 1963 Birmingham and 1965 Selma campaigns of the civil rights movement.

Making #Charlottesville investigates the historical "rhymes" in the mass media’s treatment of these events, separated by half a century, along with the ways that activists on both sides made use of the new media environment of their day to organize and amplify their respective messages. Bodroghkozy teases out the connections, similarities, and resonances among these events—from the ways all three places were consciously chosen as stage sets for media campaigns, to the similarly iconic and heavily circulated images they produced, to the sustained cultural purchase they continue to hold in the United States and around the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813949147
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	05/22/2023
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.25(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Aniko Bodroghkozy is Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement.

What People are Saying About This

Jessie Daniels

In Making #Charlottesville, Aniko Bodroghkozy gives us an important entry in the historical record of the events of August 2017 and connects it to the attempted coup four years later. She ties her analysis of the visual imagery and iconography that inspires the far right to the core of mainstream American values. Yet there is much to be hopeful about here in the work of antiracist activists who took to the streets and to social media to combat the fascists who converged on Charlottesville. This is a crucial intervention in media studies and the far right.

Ibram X. Kendi

Professor Bodroghkozy deliberately likens the 1963 Birmingham and 1965 Selma protests, Charlottesville in 2017, and the January 6th insurrection insofar that the organizers use media coverage to spread their message. Antiracists have garnered national media attention to expose racism to galvanize outrage to change racist policies. White nationalists have captured media attention to organize and amplify racist violence and white supremacy. This book is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to understand the power of media.

Susan Bro

Media is an inescapable influence in shaping our perceptions. Dr. Bodroghkozy offers keen insight into how it has been used to create the truths and myths that have shaped the world’s view of #Charlottesville. She also compares and contrasts how media was used to manipulate the public in the past. We have been played.

Julian Maxwell Hayter

Bodroghkozy makes a timely and original connection of the power of media to both contemporary racial unrest and the civil rights movement. A pleasure to read and a flat-out good book.

Editorial Reviews

Professor Bodroghkozy deliberately likens the 1963 Birmingham and 1965 Selma protests, Charlottesville in 2017, and the January 6th insurrection insofar that the organizers use media coverage to spread their message. Antiracists have garnered national media attention to expose racism to galvanize outrage to change racist policies. White nationalists have captured media attention to organize and amplify racist violence and white supremacy. This book is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to understand the power of media.

—Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Center for Antiracist Research at, Boston University, author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

Bodroghkozy makes a timely and original connection of the power of media to both contemporary racial unrest and the civil rights movement. A pleasure to read and a flat-out good book.

—Julian Maxwell Hayter, University of Richmond, author of The Dream is Lost: Voting Rights and the Politics of Race in Richmond, Virginia

In Making #Charlottesville, Aniko Bodroghkozy gives us an important entry in the historical record of the events of August 2017 and connects it to the attempted coup four years later. She ties her analysis of the visual imagery and iconography that inspires the far right to the core of mainstream American values. Yet there is much to be hopeful about here in the work of antiracist activists who took to the streets and to social media to combat the fascists who converged on Charlottesville. This is a crucial intervention in media studies and the far right.

—Jessie Daniels, Hunter College (CUNY), author of Cyber Racism: White Supremacy Online and the New Attack on Civil Rights

Media is an inescapable influence in shaping our perceptions. Dr. Bodroghkozy offers keen insight into how it has been used to create the truths and myths that have shaped the world’s view of #Charlottesville. She also compares and contrasts how media was used to manipulate the public in the past. We have been played.

—Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer

From the Publisher

Media is an inescapable influence in shaping our perceptions. Dr. Bodroghkozy offers keen insight into how it has been used to create the truths and myths that have shaped the world’s view of #Charlottesville. She also compares and contrasts how media was used to manipulate the public in the past. We have been played.

Susan Bro

In Making #Charlottesville, Aniko Bodroghkozy gives us an important entry in the historical record of the events of August 2017 and connects it to the attempted coup four years later. She ties her analysis of the visual imagery and iconography that inspires the far right to the core of mainstream American values. Yet there is much to be hopeful about here in the work of antiracist activists who took to the streets and to social media to combat the fascists who converged on Charlottesville. This is a crucial intervention in media studies and the far right.

Jessie Daniels

Professor Bodroghkozy deliberately likens the 1963 Birmingham and 1965 Selma protests, Charlottesville in 2017, and the January 6th insurrection insofar that the organizers use media coverage to spread their message. Antiracists have garnered national media attention to expose racism to galvanize outrage to change racist policies. White nationalists have captured media attention to organize and amplify racist violence and white supremacy. This book is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to understand the power of media.

Ibram X. Kendi

Bodroghkozy makes a timely and original connection of the power of media to both contemporary racial unrest and the civil rights movement. A pleasure to read and a flat-out good book.

Julian Maxwell Hayter