hero image
Kathy Roberts Forde - University of Massachusetts Amherst. Amherst, MA, US

Kathy Roberts Forde

Professor of Journalism | University of Massachusetts Amherst

Amherst, MA, UNITED STATES

Kathy Roberts Forde studies the Black freedom struggle and the press, First Amendment, literary journalism and history of book culture.

Expertise (6)

African American Freedom Struggle and the Press

The First Amendment

Journalism History

Journalism

Literary Journalism

Media and Civil Rights History

Biography

A prolific and award-winning author, Kathy Roberts Forde is a journalism historian who studies and writes about in the First Amendment, democracy and public sphere, the African American freedom struggle, literary journalism, and the history of the book and print culture.

Social Media

Video

Publications:

Documents:

Photos:

Videos:

Kathy Roberts Forde BNC News: White Media’s Impact in Creating Jim Crow South Journalism & Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America (Kathy Roberts Forde Journalists on the Frontiers - 2016 James Foley Symposium

Audio/Podcasts:

Education (3)

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Ph.D., Mass Communication/Media Studies

Middlebury College: M.A., English Language and Literature/Letters

Sewanee University: The University of the South: B.A.

Select Media Coverage (4)

Journalism and Jim Crow

New Books Network  online

2022-02-24

Kathy Roberts Forde explores the leading role of the white press in constructing an anti-democratic society by promoting and supporting not only lynching and convict labor but also coordinated campaigns of violence and fraud that disenfranchised Black voters.

view more

Opinion: Georgia regents honor racists rather than rout racism

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution  print

2021-12-06

Kathy Roberts Forde comments about the Georgia University System’s decision to reject a recommendation to rename buildings named after Confederate leaders and supporters of segregation. “It is not good for students, faculty and staff to live their lives in buildings named for people responsible for violent white supremacy,” she says.

view more

Georgia’s University System Will Not Rename Buildings With Ties to Slavery

The New York Times  print

2021-11-23

Kathy Roberts Forde comments about the Georgia University System’s decision to reject a recommendation to rename buildings named after Confederate leaders and supporters of segregation.

view more

NY Times writer Kantor speaks about covering the Weinstein case

Daily Hampshire Gazette  

2019-11-19

Kathy Roberts Forde, associate professor of journalism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, interviewed author Jodi Kantor at the Springfield Public Forum event.

view more

Select Publications (8)

The history of Memphis set the stage for the killing of Tyre Nichols

The Washington Post

Isaiah Stafford and Kathy Roberts Forde

2023-07-10

Kathy Roberts Forde and recent journalism graduate Isaiah Stafford write that a history of police violence spanning more than 150 years set the stage for the death of Tyre Nichols following his arrest in the city in January.

view more

Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America (BOOK)

University of Illinois Press

Kathy Roberts Forde, editor

2021-12-14

The contributors explore the leading role of the white press in constructing an anti-democratic society by promoting and supporting not only lynching and convict labor but also coordinated campaigns of violence and fraud that disenfranchised Black voters.

view more

How the Tougaloo Nine transformed history

The Washington Post

Sophia Gardner, Brie Thompson-Bristol and Kathy Roberts Forde

2021-05-23

Roberts Forde et al write that the arrest of the nine students set in motion a remarkable series of events from 1961 to 1964 that pitted the full force of the white supremacist power structure in Mississippi against a small, private Black Christian college.

view more

Students demand removal of ‘mild racist’ from Georgia landscape

The Conversation

Kathy Roberts Forde

2020-06-12

"Following the lead of African American activists, a coalition of young people has taken to the streets to protest police brutality and systemic racism across the country. Protesters in the South have demanded the removal of Confederate monuments and other symbols of white supremacy. In some cases, they have taken matters into their own hands."

view more

Front Pages, Front Lines: Media and the Fight for Women's Suffrage (BOOK)

University of Illinois Press

Afterward by Kathy Roberts Forde

2020-03-09

This collection offers new research on media issues related to the women's suffrage movement. Contributors incorporate media theory, historiography, and innovative approaches to social movements while discussing the vexed relationship between the media and debates over suffrage.

view more

An editor and his newspaper helped build white supremacy in Georgia

The Conversation

Kathy Roberts Forde

2019-02-15

Kathy Roberts Forde writes: "The press is an essential guardrail of democracy. As The Washington Post tells its readers, 'Democracy Dies in Darkness'. But the press has not always been a champion of democracy."

view more

How slave labor built the state of Florida — decades after the Civil War

The Washington Post

Bryan Bowman and Kathy Roberts Forde

2019-05-17

The state of Florida was built on slave labor — long after the Civil War. From 1885 to 1913, Standard Oil founder Henry Flagler built an empire in Florida of railroads, hotels, steamship lines, resorts, even cities, from Jacksonville to Key West. He raised Palm Beach and Miami from the sand.

view more

Political Pioneer of the Press: Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Her Transnational Crusade for Social Justice (Women in American Political History) (BOOK)

Lexington Book

Kathy Roberts Forde, contributor

2018-07-31

Known most prominently as a daring anti-lynching crusader, Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) worked tirelessly throughout her life as a political advocate for the rights of women, minorities, and members of the working class.

view more