Smith, Hazel Brannon

▪ 1995

      U.S. publisher and editor (b. 1914?, Gadsden, Ala.—d. May 14, 1994, Cleveland, Tenn.), courageously crusaded for social reform and consistently promoted unpopular causes as the editor of four Mississippi newspapers—the Durant News, Lexington Advertiser, Flora Banner County Outlook, and Jackson Northside Reporter. Her thriving weeklies, however, were the targets of advertising boycotts when she became outspoken about civil rights abuses in her editorial column, "Through Hazel Eyes." After earning a B.A. in journalism from the University of Alabama in 1935, Smith purchased the News and boosted circulation by catering to local news and events rather than attempting to compete with larger papers. She was able to purchase three other weeklies in rapid succession. In 1954 she published a column calling for the resignation of a local Holmes county sheriff after he reportedly shot a black youth without provocation. As she focused more on civil rights, her papers continued to lose advertising, and Smith was forced to accept paid speaking engagements to keep her newspapers afloat. In Mississippi's "Freedom Summer" of 1964, when civil rights workers registered blacks to vote, the Northside Reporter was bombed. In that same year Smith became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in recognition of her treatment of civil rights. She was also named 1964 Mississippi Woman of the Year. A documentary film, An Independent Voice, and a television movie, A Passion for Justice, chronicled her career.

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