Newspapers are history.

That line has been repeated countless times since the invention of radio to announce the impending doom of local newspapers.

Newspapers really are history, but not in the way our critics think.

We are the ones who have the power to root out corruption, give voice to the voiceless and remember the forgotten.

I took on an all-but-forgotten era of Vicksburg history last week in a three-part series. In doing so learned that for a city so proud of our Civil War history, we have neglected to remember the local struggle for civil rights.

Hundreds of young men and women passed though Vicksburg as part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer project in 1964, and in a dark part of history that I suspect our community would rather forget than discuss, they were threatened, shot at, beaten, arrested and eventually bombed.

On Oct. 5, 1964, the headquarters of the local civil rights movement was destroyed by a bomb blast in a cruel act of terrorism.

The story of Freedom Summer is well documented, but Warren County’s role wasn’t — at least until the series appeared last week in The Vicksburg Post.

“The real story to my mind is what happened in countless communities around the state and the way people in the African-American community stepped forward and opened their homes to the risky undertaking that came at some cost,” retired history professor and Freedom House worker Shelton Stromquist told me during one of my many interviews for the three-part series. “That local history, it seems to me, is so important to recover and preserve.”

At the site of the Freedom House, there is nothing to tell a story that has not been very well preserved in the past 50 years. Where the Freedom House once sat is now a vacant bank building. No sign. No plaque. Nothing but the faded memories of the men and women who put their lives on the line so children could learn and adults could vote.

We as a community can change that. The state has more than 25 Mississippi Freedom Trail markers that share our civil rights history.

The Freedom House deserves to be remembered with one of these markers, but the project needs the public’s support. Most of the markers have been paid for with public donations. I tried this week to get a price and learn about the application process, but haven’t heard back from the state.

Anyone interested in joining me for this project can send me an email or call me at the office.

I won’t let us forget. That’s the power of the paper.

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Josh Edwards is a reporter and can be reached by email at josh.edwards@vicksburgpost.com or by phone at 601-636-4545.