““Measures were quickly taken throughout Mississippi to outlaw the distribution of the Defender as well as the Crisis, the magazine of the newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1920 the state passed a law making it a misdemeanor to “print or publish or circulate” literature favoring social equality. Shortly after the law was passed, E. R. Franklin of Holmes County, Mississippi, received six months in prison and a $400 fine for selling the Crisis at his store.””
