Mabel Norris Reese (July 2, 1914 - January 1, 1995) was a civil rights activist and journalist, editor and owner of the Mount Dora Topic newspaper from 1947 to 1960.
Her induction into the Lake County, Florida Women's Hall of Fame[1] and subsequent commemoration with a bust by sculptor Jim McNalis in 2020 memorialized the crusading journalist's fight against the Ku Klux Klan.
By reporting in opposition she became the target of racism, the family dog was poisoned, her house firebombed and a cross was burned on her lawn, forcing her to relocate from Mount Dora.
His stubborn support of anti-miscegenation and pro-segregation is what landed him in a national story, the November 17, 1972 edition of Life magazine headlined, "High and Mighty Sheriff".
[11] An early proponent of Civil rights for the poor and the workers who picked the oranges in Lake County, she also championed something that was unpopular in the 1950s, Environmental Legislation.
In 2012 King's book Devil in the grove told the story of attorney Thurgood Marshall's defense of four young black men in Lake County, Florida, who were accused in 1949 of raping a white woman.
McCall picked up the suspects to return them from the county seat, claiming tire trouble enroute he stopped and shot both men who he said attacked him.
Dead fish were dumped on her porch and the house was twice targeted by bombs, she wrote an editorial reviling the KKK, with a photo of her holding her dog in front of a burning cross in her yard, indicating she did not fear the antics of the group.
[17] Mount Dora activist Gary McKechnie started a "Remember Mabel" campaign, raising the funds for a terra cotta sculpted bust that incorporated things like dirt from her former front yard that was firebombed and details like the replica MR key from her typewriter.
Reese was the first recipient of the Courage in Journalism award named for abolitionist editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy, a victim of mob violence after they repeatedly destroyed his printing press.