Through Hazel's Eyes:

   As a child, I had lots of female heroes. They lived in the biography section of the library. Amelia Earhart, Clara Barton, Jane Addams. These women were daring and brave, breaking the female norms of their day. They had something else in common.

   By the time I was born, they were all long dead.

   I didn't realize as a pre-teen in 1960's Mississippi that I lived within fifty miles of a woman who would become one of my adult heroes.

    When I did school visits in connection with Yankee Girl, it was a twenty minutes of Civil Rights history.  Lynchings, bombings, segregation, and of course, the Ku Klux Klan. After all that, the first question during Q & A was always, "Weren't there any good white Mississippians? Did anyone stand up for the black people?"

   The first time I was asked, I hemmed and hawed and said I was sure there were, but I couldn't think of any.  I explained how dangerous it was for white people to take a stand. People kept their "different" views to themselves.

   By the next school visit, I had thought of someone. Yes, I did know a good and brave white woman (Alabamian by birth, but who lived in Mississippi).  Her name was Hazel Brannon Smith, a woman who was a journalist (a female journalist!), publisher, owner and editor of four small newspapers, mostly in Holmes County, Mississippi.  In 1964, she also became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing.

Hazel Brannon Smith in her newsroom, circa 1965

    I first heard of her through the four-page weekly, The Northside Reporter, my parents subscribed to. Each week there was an editorial column called "Through Hazel Eyes" written by Hazel Brannon Smith. I had never encountered a female journalist who wasn't a "society writer," relegated to what used to be called "The Women's Section": weddings, engagements, debutant balls, soirees and "ladies' club "meetings. This Hazel lady wrote about important things--like rights for black people, voter's rights, police brutality. She felt the same way about these events that my parents did: horrified. It was as if I had found a new friend. Up until then, I thought we were the only white family in Mississippi who thought these things were wrong.  Now, I had Hazel!

  I later learned that Hazel Brannon Smith owned The Northside Reporter..  The Reporter's office was fire bombed by the KKK in 1964.

   Even at 10 I knew about the Pulitzer (after all, I planned to win one myself some day!) I was so happy when my friend Hazel, won it for "Through Hazel Eyes." First female winner for editorials. Big stuff! Big news!

  But as Paul Harvey (a favorite in my neck of the Mississippi woods) used to say "And now the rest of the story."

  Starting in the late 50's, Hazel's columns took what the locals called "a radical turn." That meant she not only wrote editorials supporting the Civil Rights Movement, she presented the facts of unsavory incidents of white violence toward blacks. (Those stories never showed up in The Jackson Daily News, or the state-wide paper, The Clarion Ledger--both owned by the same family, and once labeled "the most racist, segregationist newspapers in the country.")

  Because Hazel was becoming all unhinged and dishonoring her "southern heritage," the White Citizens Council in her hometown decided to teach her a lesson. (The Citizens Council was a more upscale version of the KKK. Council members were white collar, professional men of the community---former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was a member.) The WCC began publishing their own newspaper to compete with Hazel"s. Within two years, Hazel's paper was in financial trouble as her advertisers defected to the Citizen's Council paper. Then, as a final flourish, the WCC engineered the firing of Hazel's husband from his job as county hospital administrator.

   Friends in the civil rights community took up a collection to keep Hazel's paper going. She limped along until she was awarded the Pulitzer for "steadfast adherence to her editorial duty in the face of great pressure and opposition."

   Winning the Pulitzer only enflamed the Citizens Council more. They organized a boycott of Hazel's few remaining advertisers AND her subscribers. She had no choice. One by one, she sold off her papers. Within twenty years of winning the greatest prize in American journalism, Hazel was no longer a newspaper woman.  With time on her hands, she helped out with The Jackson Advocate, the weekly for Jackson's African-American community. It was a volunteer job that involved driving 100 miles, round trip, several times a week.

    Hazel Brannon Smith died in 1994, at the age of 80.  She had no survivors.

    And I am left with a mystery. How did a woman, raised in segregated Alabama ("The Heart of Dixie" is still part of the state's license plates), a sorority girl at the University of Alabama, seemingly the average career woman of her place and time...how did she transform into a Civil Rights crusader? As of this month, there are only two biographies of this amazing woman. Many people who consider themselves scholars of the Movement have never heard of her.

How did she become the woman of "Through Hazel Eyes"?  Perhaps there is a hint in Hazel's own words:  I'm just a little editor in a little spot.  A lot of other little editors in a lot of other little spots is what helps make this country.  It's either going to help protect that freedom that we have, or else it's 
going to let that freedom slip away by default.

   I wish she were here and writing today.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

The Five Minute Journal

       I've kept diaries/journals since third grade.  Decades of journaling has left me with more notebooks and journals than I can count.  As a third grader, I figured out writers have to practice, like I had to practice piano. Unlike piano practice, which felt like an hour chained to the piano bench, writing practice was nothing but fun.  I wrote morning, noon and night, when I wasn't doing other things like oh, say, going to school, or later, going to work.
     I got married.  I kept journaling. I worked two jobs. I wrote during lunch and work breaks. Going a day without writing was like forgetting to brush your teeth. The world didn't end, but you had this feeling that something wasn't quite right.
     Then I had a baby, and my world did cartwheels. Now I had a baby, two jobs and a husband who traveled. A lot.  I was tired. A lot. I had read A Writer's Way.  Julia Cameron's voice whispered in my ear
You're not journaling. Writers journal.  Oh great. In addition to all the other things I fretted about, I coud add the voice of a woman I'd never met, nagging me to write.
      I wanted to write. But now, even when I had a spare ten minutes, the words didn't come. My words were like stale bread; dry, tasteless, crumbling. No wait. Make that  crummy. See, said my imaginary Julia, what happens if you don't journal.
      But I couldn't do everything.  If I only had an hour a day to write, I didn't want to spend it writing "Morning Pages." But I couldn't just sit down and write without some sort of warm-up.  And without my journal I was finding it hard to generate new ideas, stay enthused about writing. I was a Writing Burnout, and I hadn't sold a single sentence.  That was just sad.
      When I began working with young writers, we discovered we had a mutual problem;  journals. Me, because I had no time. The students were "victims" of a well-intentioned local curriculum that requires ten minutes of journaling first thing every morning, second through eighth grades. My students blanched at just the word journal.
      So we stopped journaling.  Now we observe and report.
     We keep a large notebook, which is our log, but we carry with us a pocket size notebook for reporting.  We have a standing assignment. Each day, my students and I record these three things.
       1. Something that makes you stop and go "Hunh?  I wonder what's up with that?"
       2.  An overheard piece of conversation that catches your ear. Yes, I encourage eavesdropping, but only in public places.
       3. Something that makes a strong sensory impression.
       That's it.  They aren't supposed to do anything with it. They don't draw story webs or brainstorms ten ideas they write about. Just the facts ma'am.
        Here are some examples of my students observations: a bright yellow Porsche parked in the driveway of a small shabby house with an unkempt yard.  A person (sex undetermined) in full clownsuit mode---red wig, floppy shoes and all---waiting at bus stop in the middle of a weekday afternoon. An unused baby swimming pool, now swarming with tadpoles.
      Overheard conversation include such memorable quotes as "Hey, you wanna piece of me?" "I am not leaving this bathroom until I find some mascara." "Peas do not belong in ears."
      Strong sensory impressions ranged from "the pain of having your braces adjusted" to "our neighbors' noisy parties" to "the taste of Grandma's Pizza Potpie.
      At the beginning of each session, I ask if anyone would like to share their observations. I never insist that someone share, but after hearing their friends observations, nearly everyone wants to share.

      Sometimes, the image is so thought-provoking that the group will spontaneously brainstorm on their own. If it happens, cool. If it doesn't, see the five exercises below.

                                                                    Writing Workout

  1.  Have the student choose one of their observations for a five-minute free write.

   2. Using one of the observations, the student will write about it, using all five senses in the description.

   3.  Have the students choose one of their five senses. and write using only that sense. They are not allowed to choose sight as their sense.

   4.  The students write from their observations, this time using all the senses except sight.

   5. Ninety-nine per cent of the time students write first person personal narratives. It's easier (I do it, too!)  Assign each student a particular character (the snob, the mom, the little sister, etc) and have them write the piece again, this time from the point of view of their new character. They can still write in first person, but now they are writing as mom, or an orthodontist, or an older brother.

     After each exercise, the students are then encouraged to share. When sharing generates enthusiasm resembling a pep rally. ("Hey why don't do you this?" "What if..." "And then he could..."), it's time to turn the hounds loose.

     Typically, I only need to use one or two of these exercises before students leap from straight description, to a story or a poem.

     My students come to a session, notebooks in hand, dying to "share."  Little do they know that "share time" is a spring board to writing in their logs." I call it "expanding your observation."You could also call it journaling.  I don't.

    This process has also worked for me, the writer. Jotting down a couple of things to expand on later takes the pressure (and guilt) away.  Julia Cameron is where she should be; between the covers of her books, and not in my head.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman