Percy Dale East

Percy Dale East
Born	(1921-11-21)November 21, 1921 Columbia, Mississippi, U.S.
Died	December 31, 1971(1971-12-31) (aged 50) Fairhope, Alabama, U.S.
Occupation	Journalist
Years active	1951–1971

Percy Dale East (1921–1971) was an American journalist who founded and edited Petal, Mississippi's weekly newspaper, The Petal Paper.[1] He is known for his use of satire to criticize white supremacy in Jim Crow-era Mississippi.[1][2]

East was born in 1921 and was adopted as a baby by Jim and Birdie East from Columbia, Mississippi.[3] He started working as a journalist for Mississippi labor union newspapers in 1951, before founding the Petal Paper in 1953.[1] The paper's political views were unpopular in the local community of Petal, Mississippi but East received financial support from figures including Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Golden, and Harry Belafonte.[4]

Published works

• East, P. D. (1960). The Magnolia Jungle: The Life, Times, and Education of a Southern Editor. New York: Simon and Schuster. OCLC 686720.

References

1. Houck, Davis W.; Dixon, David E., eds. (2006). Rhetoric, Religion and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965. Vol. 1. Baylor University Press. p. 209. ISBN 978-1-932792-54-6.
2. Browning, William (September 2018). "The Fearless Wit of Forrest County". Smithsonian. pp. 66–76.
3. Barnwell, Marion, ed. (1997). A Place Called Mississippi. University Press of Mississippi. p. 183. ISBN 9781617033391.
4. The Mississippi Encyclopedia. University Press of Mississippi. 2017. p. 373. ISBN 9781496811592.

Further reading

• McLaughlin, Thomas B. (1984). 'The Hell You Say, Brother': The Experiences of P.D. East in Mississippi (Thesis). Princeton University. OCLC 12814458.
• Huey, Gary (1985). Rebel with a Cause: P.D. East, Southern Liberalism, and the Civil Rights Movement 1953-1971. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc. ISBN 978-0-8420-2228-6.
• Eagles, Charles W. (June 1986). "Gary Huey. Rebel with a Cause: P. D. East, Southern Liberalism, and the Civil Rights Movement, 1953–1971". The American Historical Review. 91 (3): 762–763. doi:10.1086/ahr/91.3.762.
• Featherston, James S. (1987). "Rebel With a Cause: P.D. East, Southern Liberalism, and the Civil Rights Movement, 1953-1971". American Journalism. 4 (1): 44–45. doi:10.1080/08821127.1987.10731096.
• Kades, Deborah G. (1992). Covering the Second Fort Sumter: Newspapers and the Little Rock Crisis (M.A.). University of Wisconsin-Madison. pp. 127–. OCLC 608836779.
• Ownby, Ted; Wilson, Charles Reagan; Abadie, Ann J.; Lindsey, Odie; Thomas, Jr, James G., eds. (2017). "East, P.D., and the Petal Paper". The Mississippi Encyclopedia. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 372–373. ISBN 978-1-4968-1159-2.