Norma Fields Papers

Correspondence, articles and clippings, speeches, photographs, awards, audiotapes and other records documenting the journalistic career of Fields (1923-2010), reporter for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. Fields in 1975 was made capitol news reporter. She is the first female Mississippi journalist to head a full-time capitol news bureau. Field's papers reflect local and state events during her early years as a reporter, including material such as her 1967 multi-part series on her interview with a disillusioned Klan member. For the period from 1975 until Field's retirement in 1988, the papers include much material on legislative sessions and issues, women's rights, local and state politics, and the elections and gubernatorial administrations of Cliff Finch, Bill Allain, William Winter and Ray Mabus. An oral history by Dr. Lawrence Strout was added in 2009.