The Mississippi Enterprise (Jackson, Miss.) 1938-Current
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
503 issues from 1942 to 1963, published in Jackson, Mississippi, digitised for Chronicling America.
The Mississippi Enterprise was one of two long-running, contemporary papers published in the state capitol, Jackson, for African American citizens; the other was the Jackson Advocate started in 1939 by Percy Greene. The Advocate and the Enterprise were typically eight-pages, published weekly, and distributed on Saturday. Greene and Willie J. Miller of the Enterprise were conservatives who adhered to Booker T. Washington’s self-help philosophy. The two journals were able to survive many decades due in part to financial support by the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a state agency dedicated to racial segregation.
Although the paper may have started as early as 1933 under a different title, in 1938 it became The Mississippi Enterprise with Miller as managing editor; by 1953, he owned the publication. Described as “A news service for Mississippi Negroes,” the first page typically carried state news and sometimes national and international news from the International Negro Press. The strength of the paper, however, was local news from many towns and cities including Bay Springs, Brandon, Brookhaven, Canton, Clarksdale, Crystal Springs, Hazlehurst, Holly Springs, Jackson, McComb, Meridian, Monticello, Raymond, Terry, Utica, and Winona. For a time in the 1960s, every issue served as The Mississippi Enterprise, the Greenwood Enterprise, and the Vicksburg Enterprise; each title was assigned its own volume and issue number. Local information included general news; club and…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Jackson, 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