Published in Forgotten Heroes, Inspiring Portraits From Our Leading Historians from The Free Press

“At the time she became a hero, Hazel Brannon Smith was forty years old. She was tall and buxom with fair skin and hair that she worked to keep light brown. She was the owner and editor of two small newspapers in the Mississippi Delta and the wealthiest self-made woman in the state. While she did not hesitate to crusade against gambling, social disease and even Joe McCarthy, Hazel enjoyed nothing more than wearing showing, costly hats, driving the latest model Cadillac, and basking in her final acceptance into the white society of Lexington, Mississippi, an ante-bellum town of Greek Revival mansions that was the seat of languid, fertile Holmes County….”