May 1, 1937

Liz Montague’s Google Doodle honoring pioneering African American cartoonist Jackie Ormes. Credit: Courtesy of Google

Jackie Ormes became the first known Black cartoonist whose work was read coast to coast through the major black publication, the Pittsburgh Courier. 

Her cartoon told the story of Torchy Brown, a Mississippi teenager who sang and danced her way from Mississippi to New York City, mirroring the Great Migration, when millions of African Americans trekked from the South to the North, Midwest and West. 

In 1945, her cartoon, “Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger,” started. The strip proved so popular that department stores sold Patty-Jo as a doll. Five years later, Torchy returned, this time as a confident and courageous woman who dared to tackle such issues as race, sex and the environment. Readers applauded this strong model of what young Black women could be. 

In 2014, she was inducted into the Black Journalists Hall of Fame and was later featured by Google on its search page.

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The stories of investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell have helped put four Klansmen and a serial killer behind bars. His stories have also helped free two people from death row, exposed injustices and corruption, prompting investigations and reforms as well as the firings of boards and officials. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a longtime member of Investigative Reporters & Editors, and a winner of more than 30 other national awards, including a $500,000 MacArthur “genius” grant. After working for three decades for the statewide Clarion-Ledger, Mitchell left in 2019 and founded the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting.