Yazoo City’s newspaper had a history of providing a forum for its pro-lynching readership
Ralph Eubanks, author, professor and Mississippi native, said the press was a factor in the racial terror. “The media, for the most part, kept that whole segregationist Mississippi way of life narrative. They helped perpetuate that, I would say, well into the ’70s after integration,” he said.
Grace Hale, a historian and writer on the South, said the Black press, including The Chicago Defender, was constantly trying to counter the stories the white press was printing.
“At that point, you see du