The Durant News (Durant, Miss.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
774 issues from 1928 to 1958, published in Durant, Mississippi, digitised for Chronicling America.
The railroad community, Durant, is located in Holmes County in rural west-central Mississippi. Twenty-four years after the town was founded in 1858, the Durant News, was established. The newspaper had numerous publishers and editors before stability was achieved when single, native-Alabaman Hazel Brannon bought the declining weekly in 1936.
The first of four Mississippi newspapers owned by Brannon, the Durant News was typical for a small-town journal in many ways with a mix of national, state, and local news, serialized stories, filler pieces, and advertisements. What made her papers atypical was her editorial column entitled, "Through Hazel Eyes." As a journalism major at the University of Alabama, Hazel Brannon embraced the philosophy that journalists had an obligation to accurately report the news to enable readers to make their own informed decisions and to make a positive contribution to the community they served. This she did with determination taking aim against bootleg liquor in her column during the first 20 years as proprietor of the News.
Mississippi made the sale of alcoholic beverages illegal 11 years prior to the start of national prohibition in 1920 and didn't repeal the state law until 1966. An unlawful liquor business, run by organized crime, filled the vacuum and provided a venue for other illicit activities such as prostitution and gambling. Brannon, who married Walter Dyer Smith in 1950, wasn't against the consumption of alcohol, she was, however,…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Durant, Mississippi, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress