Hazel Freeman Smith (née Brannon; February 4, 1914 – May 15, 1994) was an American journalist and publisher, the owner and editor of four weekly newspapers in rural
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
, mostly in
Holmes County. Her newspapers included the ''Lexington Advertiser'', the second oldest newspaper in the state. She distinguished herself both in reporting and editorial writing, advocating for justice for African Americans in the county and the state.
In 1964, she became the first woman to receive the
Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing
The Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Journalism. It has been awarded since 1917 for distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clearness of style, ...
, largely for her writing about the
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
in the year of the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), also referred to as the Freedom Democratic Party, was an American political party created in 1964 as a branch of the populist Freedom Democratic organization in the state of Mississippi during the ...
. She received numerous other awards for her work as a publisher and editor.
A lifelong
Baptist
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...
, Smith described herself as "just a little editor in a little spot. A lot of other little editors in a lot of little spots is what helps make this country. It's either going to help protect that freedom that we have, or else it's going to let that freedom slip away by default."
Biography
Hazel Freeman Brannon was born in 1914 in
Alabama City, Alabama
Alabama City is a former city and now a neighborhood within the city of Gadsden in Etowah County, Alabama, United States. It was equidistant between Gadsden and Attalla, Alabama, approximately 2 1/2 miles west of downtown Gadsden.
History
Foun ...
. She attended local schools and was raised a Baptist by her parents. In 1930, she graduated at the age of 16 from high school in Gadsden. She showed an early interest in journalism, working on a local paper before college. She attended the
University of Alabama
The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a Public university, public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and la ...
and graduated in 1935 with a B.A. in journalism.
After graduation, she went to
Durant, Mississippi
Durant is a city near the central eastern border of Holmes County, Mississippi, United States, and Big Black River. The town was founded in 1858 as a station on the Mississippi Central Railroad, later part of the Illinois Central. Durant was nam ...
and bought the failing ''Durant News'' of
Holmes County. This majority-black county, long dominated by agriculture, was bordered on the west by the
Yazoo River
The Yazoo River is a river in the U.S. states of Louisiana and Mississippi. It is considered by some to mark the southern boundary of what is called the Mississippi Delta, a broad floodplain that was cultivated for cotton plantations before the ...
and was part of the
Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta, also known as the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta, or simply the Delta, is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi (and portions of Arkansas and Louisiana) that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo ...
. By 1943 she had turned the Durant paper around.
She bought another weekly, ''The Lexington Advertiser'', based in the nearby county seat of
Lexington, where she lived. It was the second oldest newspaper in the state.
She edited and published the ''Lexington Advertiser,'' the major newspaper in Holmes County, for four decades from 1943-85.
[Jeffrey B. Howell, ''Hazel Brannon Smith: The Female Crusading Scalawag'' (2017) ch 1]
In 1956, Smith acquired the ''Banner County Outlook'' (
Flora, Mississippi
Flora is a town in Madison County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 1,886 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Jackson Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The town is named after Flora Mann Jones, an early resident.
History
Graves in ...
) and the ''Northside Reporter'' (
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the Capital city, capital of and the List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, Mississippi, ...
), the latter based in the state capital.
In 1950, she married Walter Dyer Smith, known as "Smitty", whom she had met on an around-the-world cruise. He was working as the ship's purser. He settled with her in Holmes County and became a county hospital administrator.
Reporting the facts and writing editorials
Smith became known for her editorials and her column ("Through Hazel's Eyes"), which focused on unpopular causes, political corruption, and social injustice in Mississippi, particularly Holmes County. This agricultural county of 27,000 had a majority-black population, many of whom were poor. As early as April 1943, she indicated her independence by a feature front-page story in her Durant paper about an African-American civic group that donated money to the local Red Cross. Most newspapers at the time reported on African Americans only when they were involved in crimes.
Smith was a woman of the South and had absorbed many of its mores. But she wrote in support of a county venereal disease clinic, and encouraged law enforcement to act against illegal bootlegging and gambling.
She initially wrote against the United States Supreme Court ruling in ''
Brown v. Board of Education
''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
'' (1954), saying the races preferred separation, and that southern states needed to work on their own solutions.
In 1954, Smith attracted attention for her reporting of the sheriff shooting Harry Randall in the leg, after a confrontation in which he told the man to get moving. Smith criticized Sheriff Richard Byrd for harassing a black resident and called for his resignation. He filed a
libel
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
suit against her, winning in the lower court, but a state court of appeals overturned the verdict against her.
After 1954 Smith no longer supported segregation in her editorials. She became known for her truthful reporting and sympathy for justice for African Americans. Gradually she began to express a progressive position, editorializing in favor of the
civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
and against activities of the White Citizens Council.
Following the Supreme Court decision in ''
Brown v. Board of Education
''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
'',
White Citizens' Council
The Citizens' Councils (commonly referred to as the White Citizens' Councils) were an associated network of white supremacist, segregationist organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South and created as part of a white backlash a ...
were established across the state, especially in black-majority counties, to oppose school desegregation. The state also established the taxpayer-funded
Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission
The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (also called the Sov-Com) was a state agency in Mississippi from 1956 to 1977 tasked with fighting desegregation and controlling civil rights activism. It was overseen by the Governor of Mississippi. T ...
, ostensibly to promote and market the state. But it established a secret police arm that conducted surveillance of private citizens, made lists of suspected activists, and made these available to private groups to conduct suppression of civil rights activism.
Smith's editorials and fair reporting attracted the wrath of local and eventually state segregationists. In 1956, the Citizens' Council of Holmes County forced the firing of her husband Walter B. Smith from his position as county hospital administrator, affecting their economic stability. This was the kind of economic blackmail being used against civil rights activists across the state: African Americans were fired for being members of the NAACP, others were evicted from rental housing, and some businesses were boycotted in an effort to suppress activism.
In 1959, the Citizens' Council in Holmes County started the ''Holmes County Herald'' to compete with Smith's newspaper, ''The Lexington Advertiser''.
In 1960, Smith received the Elijah P. Lovejoy Award for Courage in Journalism from the International Conference of Weekly Newspaper Editors and Southern Illinois University. On Halloween 1960, an eight-foot tall cross was burned on the lawn of her home. While this was a sign of the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
, she attributed the incident to teenagers having learned hate from their parents.
[Carol Nunnelly, "Hazel Brannon Smith"](_blank)
''Encyclopedia of Alabama'', 2008; updated 2018.
Beginning in 1961, Smith faced an outright economic boycott on advertising, as the White Citizens Council increased its opposition after learning that she was printing jobs for African-American activists. Smith attracted support among other newspaper publishers, such as
Hodding Carter, Jr. of
Greenville, Mississippi
Greenville is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 34,400 at the 2010 census. It is located in the area of historic cotton plantations and culture known as the Mississippi Delta.
Hi ...
. In 1961, he organized a committee to raise money to help her.
In December 1961, Smith began to print the ''Mississippi Free Press'', founded by activists in an effort to get their news out to the African-American community in the state. Most white-owned newspapers carried only negative coverage of their efforts, if any. Smith later undertook other printing jobs for African-American customers: the monthly ''Baptist Observer'' and books for the black
Baptist Convention. These jobs helped support her newspaper. She also hired blacks to work in the printing plant and became more familiar with them personally and their political struggle.
Smith continued to report fuller accounts of local news, for instance providing the details of the police shooting in June 1963 of Alfred Brown, an African-American Navy veteran of World War II and father of five who was fatally shot soon after being released from a mental hospital. She described the racism of the police in this incident, including their refusal to let Brown's family go to his aid.
In the civil rights years and later, African Americans in Holmes County said they gained optimism from seeing her as an example of a "white person
hoshowed the capacity to change and the willingness to join them."
[Bernard L. Stein, "This female crusading scalawag"](_blank)
first published in ''Media Studies Journal,'' Spring/Summer 2000; reposted at academia.edu; accessed December 23, 2018.
Initially Holmes County was relatively quiet in terms of civil rights activity, but this changed in 1963 and 1964. In 1964 Smith welcomed the 33
SNCC
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segrega ...
volunteers who came to the county to educate African Americans and prepare them for registering and voting in what was known as "
Mississippi Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer, also known as the Freedom Summer Project or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. ...
". Smith wrote,
“One of the most popular misconceptions in Mississippi is the idea that if everyone would just leave us alone we would work out all our problems and everything would be fine. . . . The truth is we have been left pretty much alone for nearly one hundred years – and we have not faced up to our problems as well as we should.”
In 1964 Smith was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
for Editorial Writing for her body of work, for editorials opposing the activities of the White Citizens' Council and its support of segregation. Her citation noted her "steadfast adherence to her editorial duty in the face of great pressure and opposition." At the same time, she represented herself as a moderate, perhaps to keep as broad a base as possible in her effort to change people's minds.
Smith continued to be affected by the violence of this period. In September 1964, her ''Northside Reporter'', located in the state capital of Jackson, was bombed. In 1967, shortly before the ''Advertiser'' was to go to press, her printing plant in Lexington was set on fire by arsonists. Smith managed to publish a "miniature version" of her paper for that edition.
The WCC's continued boycott of customers and advertisers of her papers took a severe financial toll. In 1965, the ''
Columbia Journalism Review
The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its contents include news and media industry trends, ana ...
'' established a fund for Smith: other journalists and editors raised nearly $2,700 nationally. Her local support was even greater: blacks from across the economic spectrum in Holmes County raised more than $2855 to help her. The latter money was presented to her on Editor's Appreciation Day by Dr.
Arenia Mallory
Arenia Conelia Mallory (December 28, 1904 – May 1977) was an American educator based in Lexington, Mississippi. She was recognized nationally as a political activist working for African-American education and civil rights. She gained a nationa ...
at
Saints Junior College, an event organized by African Americans in Holmes County to counter the activities of the White Citizens Council.
[Jan Whitt, ''Burning Crosses and Activist Journalism: Hazel Brannon Smith and the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement''](_blank)
University Press of America, 2010, pg. 88
In the 1970s Smith finally sold two of her newspapers because of continued financial problems. She was not able to recover financially from economic boycotts. In 1982 her husband died in a fall at home. In 1985 she filed for bankruptcy, and was forced to close her remaining two newspapers, including the ''Lexington Advertiser''. It was the second oldest newspaper in the state, and its building still stands in Lexington, deteriorating and "open to the elements."
None of these small newspapers survived the loss of her leadership and changes to the industry.
In 1986 Smith moved to live with her sister and her family in Gadsden, Alabama, her hometown, suffering from early symptoms of apparent
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...
. She later moved to be near nieces in Tennessee. She died there in 1994 in a nursing home in
Cleveland, Tennessee
Cleveland is the county seat of and largest city in Bradley County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 47,356 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Cleveland metropolitan area, Tennessee (consisting of Bradley and neigh ...
. Her body was returned to Alabama, where she was buried near family members in Gadsden.
Legacy and honors
Smith received other recognition in addition to the Pulitzer Prize: awards from the
National Federation of Press Women The National Federation of Press Women (NFPW) is a United States-based organization of professional women and men pursuing careers in the field of communications, including electronic, broadcast and print journalism, public relations, marketing, adv ...
(1946, 1955), the Herrick Award for Editorial Writing (1956), the Mississippi Press Association (1957). She won the Golden Quill Award of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors in 1963, and in 1964 was named by the National Council of Women as the “Woman of Conscience” that year.
She was president of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors in 1981–82.
Death
Hazel Freeman Smith died in
Cleveland, Tennessee
Cleveland is the county seat of and largest city in Bradley County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 47,356 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Cleveland metropolitan area, Tennessee (consisting of Bradley and neigh ...
on May 15, 1994, aged 80.
Papers
Smith's 1945-1976 papers are available to researchers and held at the Special Collections department of the
Mississippi State University Library.
Films
Smith was one of the subjects in the documentary film ''An Independent Voice'' (1973) about small-town newspaper editors. Her life was dramatized in the
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
-TV movie ''A Passion for Justice: The Hazel Brannon Smith Story'' (1994), with
Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour (c. 150824 October 1537) was List of English consorts, Queen of England as the third wife of King Henry VIII of England from their Wives of Henry VIII, marriage on 30 May 1536 until her death the next year. She became queen followi ...
in the title role. The movie aired several weeks before Smith died.
Further reading
* Kathleen Brady, "Hazel Brannon Smith: White Martyr for Civil Rights," in ''Forgotten Heroes,'' edited by Susan Ware, New York:
The Free Press, 1998.
* David R. Davies, ed. ''The Press and Race: Mississippi Journalists Confront the Movement.'' Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001.
* Jeffrey B. Howell, ''Hazel Brannon Smith: The Female Crusading Scalawag'' (University Press of Mississippi, 2017).
* Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff. ''The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.
* Ann Waldron. ''Hodding Carter: The Reconstruction of a Racist''. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1993.
* John A. Whalen, ''Maverick Among the Magnolias: The Hazel Brannon Smith Story'',
Xlibris (self-published), 2001.
*
Mabel Norris Reese Lovejoy Award recipient
References
External links
Hazel Brannon Smith: "Bombed, Burned and Boycotted" 1983 Fellow, Alicia Patterson Foundation website
Female Crusading Scalawag"by Bernard L. Stein, ''Freedom Forum'', Summer 2000
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Hazel Brannon
1914 births
1994 deaths
Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing winners
American women journalists
American newspaper editors
Writers from Alabama
Women newspaper editors
20th-century American women writers
Journalists from Alabama
People from Gadsden, Alabama
People from Lexington, Mississippi
People from Durant, Mississippi
Editors of Mississippi newspapers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American journalists