Burning Crosses and Activist Journalism: Hazel Brannon Smith and the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement

by Jan Whitt University of Colorado Bo

Overview

Burning Crosses and Activist Journalism: Hazel Brannon Smith and the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement celebrates the contributions of the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing (1964). Owner and publisher of four weekly newspapers in Mississippi, Smith began her journalism career as a states rights Dixiecrat and segregationist, but became an icon for progressive thought on racial and ethnic issues. Though befriended by editors such as Hodding Carter Jr. and Ira B. Harkey Jr., Smith was a target of the White Citizens' Council and was boycotted by advertisers. During the civil rights movement, a cross was burned in her yard and one of her newspaper offices was firebombed. Before her death in 1994, she endured foreclosure, memory loss, and public humiliation, but she never lost faith in journalism or in the power of informed debate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761849568
Publisher:	University Press of America
Publication date:	11/10/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	170
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Jan Whitt is a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder. An award-winning author who has written more than seventy articles and book chapters, she also has written several books: Allegory and the Modern Southern Novel (Mercer University Press, 1994), Settling the Borderland: Other Voices in Literary Journalism (University Press of America 2008), and Women in American Journalism: A New History (University of Illinois Press, 2008). She edited Reflections in a Critical Eye: Essays on Carson McCullers (University Press of America, 2007).

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction: The American South in Literature and Popular Culture
Chapter 2 Preface
Chapter 3 Acknowledgements
Chapter 4 Chapter 1: The Unlikely Heroism of Hazel Brannon Smith
Chapter 5 Chapter 2: Hazel Brannon Smith and Editor Ira B. Harkey Jr.
Chapter 6 Chapter 3: White Hate Groups and Mississippi Newspapers
Chapter 7 Chapter 4: White Civil Rights Editors and Hazel Brannon Smith
Chapter 8 Chapter 5: Racial Issues in Southern Literature and Journalism
Chapter 9 Conclusion: The Legacy of Civil Rights Journalism
Chapter 10 Works Cited
Chapter 11 Index
Chapter 12 About the Author

Editorial Reviews

Is an interesting read. Whitt's inclusion of race issues as portrayed in Southern literature impacts depth and understanding to the racial climate of the time and should interest students of Southern literature.

American Journalism: A Media History Journal

Is an interesting read. Whitt's inclusion of race issues as portrayed in Southern literature impacts depth and understanding to the racial climate of the time and should interest students of Southern literature.

Spring 2010 American Journalism: A Media History Journal