Larry Doby, the second black player in modern Major League Baseball, died Wednesday. He was 79. Jackie Robinson crossed the color barrier in 1947 with the National League’s Brooklyn Dodgers. Eleven weeks later, Doby became the first black player in the American League when he joined the Cleveland Indians. But in many ways, Doby had a tougher, lonelier fight than Robinson.
Mississippi native Donna Ladd and partner Todd Stauffer founded the Jackson Free Press in 2002 in the capital city. The heavily awarded local newspaper did many investigations heralded across the state and nation and served as a paper of record due to its diversity, inclusion, in-depth reporting and deep connection to readers and dedication to narrative change in and about Mississippi. In 2022, the nonprofit Mississippi Free Press, founded by Ladd and JFP Associate Publisher Kimberly Griffin in 2020, purchased the journalism assets and archives of the Jackson Free Press. A Google grant through AAN Publishers enabled Newspack's integration of the JFP archives into the Mississippi Free Press website to become part of a more searchable archive of recent Mississippi history and essential journalism.
More by JFP Staff