Co-founder and Editor
Mississippi Free Press
Neshoba County, Mississippi native Donna Ladd is CEO of the nonprofit Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, co-founder and editor of the statewide Mississippi Free Press and the Jackson Free Press, and is the director and founder of the Mississippi Youth Media Project. Her journalism focuses on white supremacy, race violence and systemic inequity (which she calls “systemic reporting”), and she contributes features and columns to The Guardian and others as time allows. She has won over 150 national and regional journalism awards and had fellowships and grants through W.K. Kellogg Foundation, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Solutions Journalism Network and the Logan Nonfiction Program. Donna, raised by her illiterate mother, is a 1983 graduate of Mississippi State University with a degree in political science and received her master's in journalism at the Columbia Journalism School in 2001, which awarded her an alumni award in 2021. Since returning to Mississippi in 2002, her investigative journalism has helped put a Klan murderer in prison and a Jackson mayor on trial … twice. One of her mantras is by Hazel Brannon Smith: "I ain't no lady. I'm a newspaper woman." She is also writing a book about roots and hidden realities of American racism in her spare time—between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. most mornings.
From the Ground Up: Strengthening Communities Through Local News (Invite Only; at capacity)
Thursday, September 11, 2025
1:15 PM - 2:15 PM CDT