Press: New South at the Clarion-Ledger

A Mississippi paper backs education—and wins a Pulitzer

When 200,000 people marched on Washington in 1963 to urge "jobs and freedom" for blacks, the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger noted the rally dryly but reported the litter-clearance effort the next day under the headline: WASHINGTON IS CLEAN AGAIN WITH NEGRO TRASH REMOVED. Times have changed in Mississippi—and at the 146-year-old Clarion-Ledger. The state-capital paper, whose modest daily circulation of 70,000 is Mississippi's largest, crusades against corruption and police brutality toward poor blacks. Last week the paper's campaign for reform of the state's allegedly inadequate, segregation-tainted public schools won the most coveted award in newspaper...