Keeping Up the Fight   

Charles Tisdale , publisher of the Jackson Advocate , Mississippi's oldest black-owned newspaper, has endured death threats and bombings, but he's never missed an issue.

On Monday, January 26, the Advocate's downtown Jackson office was doused in gasoline and hit with Molotov cocktails, destroying the contents of the first floor newsroom. On Thursday, the weekly 8,000-circ paper hit the stands on schedule.

"We've never missed an issue in 60 years," says Tisdale, who bought the paper in 1978 from the estate of founder Percy Greene .

"I'd always wanted to own my own newspaper because I'd been restricted by the owners of other newspapers I'd worked for due to differences in politics," says Tisdale, who previously edited the Memphis Times-Herald .

But Tisdale, 67, has dealt with problems more serious than onerous owners since he began to run the Advocate. The January bombing was just one of more than 20 violent attacks since he's been the publisher. Last summer, his home was shot at, and he says he regularly receives death threats over the phone.

Tisdale considers no alternative but to keep up the fight. "What else do you do when you love journalism?" he asks. "It's all I want to do. I couldn't choose another profession – I'd be sitting around twiddling my thumbs all day."

Stephanie Parker-Weaver , secretary of the paper's board of directors, says Tisdale's "scathing editorials of the resident political structure" might motivate the attacks. "He is able to weave stories into this beautiful fabric of motive and intrigue, and spin it so that it cuts and bites," she says.

Tisdale says it's vital that he continue to stand up in spite of the threats, bullets and fire. "The only way you know that you are free is by self-determination," he says. "If I walked into another profession, then I am not free."