Edgar Simpson of The University of Southern Mississippi has won the 2024 Michael S. Sweeney Award for his article, “Manipulating the Sphere: Mississippi’s Post-Brown Offensive Against White Journalists.”
Presented by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the Sweeney Award recognizes the outstanding article published in the previous volume of the scholarly journal Journalism History. The Division’s Publications Committee selected the article from among four finalists provided by Journalism History Editor Pam Parry. In addition to receiving a plaque and cash prize, Simpson will be honored during the History Division’s awards gala at this year’s AEJMC conference in Philadelphia.
“Dr. Sweeney was my dissertation adviser, and I call on my inner-Sweeney daily for inspiration. His spirit remains strong and vital with so many of us,” Simpson said. “This is such a humbling honor and should be seen as a group award, for the amazing reviewers who improved this article and Dr. Parry’s elegant and thoughtful editing.
“In doing this research what struck me most was not the horrifying acts, but the astonishing courage displayed by many in an environment of fear and intimidation. Those times, despite our fervent hopes, are not behind us.”
Simpson’s article, published in Volume 49 Issue 1 of Journalism History, examines how after the Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate the doctrine of separate but equal in its Brown v. Board of Education decision, the Mississippi legislature passed laws aimed at preventing desegregation. Their efforts included creating a Sovereignty Commission. Simpson scrutinizes the commission’s action, including its attempts to intimidate White journalists.
About the winning article, the judges commented:
“Simpson’s research makes a valuable contribution to the study of journalism and the Black struggle for equality in the mid-twentieth century. It shows how illiberal forces in Mississippi abandoned all pretenses of a free press and harnessed state power to suppress White newspapers that dared to express even modest criticism of hardline White supremacy.”
“This was a fascinating study of Mississippi’s Sovereignty Committee and its work to ensure White journalists were promoting White supremacy. The author states, ‘The purpose is to explore why the commission with its racist mission would focus so much energy on White journalists who did not favor integration.’ What an interesting angle! The author points out that Committee members pursued these cases in an effort to prevent ‘any cracks in the White wall against integration.’ The examination of the committee’s PR efforts – how they waged ‘a battle for public opinion that would support Whiteness as good policy’ – was particularly insightful.”
“This important piece contributes to our understanding of the messy and fraught mid-century fall of Jim Crow, at a moment when backlash against DEI and other institutional actions against racism are again under scrutiny.”
The other finalists for the 2024 Sweeney Award were Meg Heckman and Arden Bastia for “Expecting Advice: Reproductive Health and Consciousness Raising in the Boston Globe’s Confidential Chat Column”; Anna E. Lindner, Michael Fuhlhage, D. T. Frazier, and Keena S. Neal for “’If Ever Saints Wept and Hell Rejoiced, It Must Have Been over the Passage of That Law’: The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act in Detroit River Borderland Newspapers, 1851-1852”; and Teri Finneman and Ryan J. Thomas for “’Blood on their Hands’ vs. ‘A Foolish Prank’: The British Press’s Response to a Deadly Hoax on the Royal Family.”
The History Division created the Sweeney award in 2018 to honor Michael S. Sweeney. He served as editor of Journalism History from 2012 to 2018 and worked to ensure its future by initiating the transition from an independent publication to the official scholarly publication of the History Division.