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This story originally appeared in the Jackson Free Press. It was added to the Mississippi Free Press website in 2025.
Note that any opinions expressed in legacy Jackson Free Press stories do not reflect a position of the Mississippi Free Press or necessarily of its staff and board members.

Credit: File photo

Gov. Haley Barbour signed a bill last week to change the names of many of the state’s highways. Mississippi Highway 552 will be named after longtime Alcorn State University educator Walter Washington. Another highway in Coldwater, Miss., will honor Martin Luther King Jr.

Other highway designees include Sgt. Todd Partridge, who served and died in Iraq, and Chaplain Clark Poling, who served at Camp Shelby in Hattiesburg during World War 11 and posthumously won a Purple Heart.

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.