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.

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).

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, Spring 2010 *



Book Information
ISBN 9780761849551
Author Jan Whitt
Format Paperback
Page Count 170
Imprint University Press of America
Publisher University Press of America
Weight(grams) 259g
Dimensions(mm) 232mm * 155mm * 13mm