WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Post

December 20, 2017

By Amy B Wang

On March 13, 1964, a tiny diocesan newspaper edited by a young Catholic priest with no prior journalism experience laid out the case for racial desegregation in Mississippi.

The editorial in the Mississippi Register, headlined “Legal Segregation is Dying,” was stunning for its controversial position at the time, particularly in a racially charged state at the center of the American civil rights movement. Only months before, a prominent civil rights leader had been shot in the back and killed.