NASHVILLE, TENN. — Rosetta Miller-Perry, founder and publisher of The Tennessee Tribune, died on June 26 at the age of 91.

Miller-Perry was born in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, on July 7, 1934. She graduated from Coraopolis Senior High School in 1952 and attended Howard University and Herzl Community College. She enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1955 and graduated from the University of Memphis with a B.S. in chemistry in 1956. In 1957, she earned a D.M.S. from the John A. Gumpton School of Mortuary Science and attended Tennessee State University and Meharry Medical College for nurse training in 1958.

Her professional experience included work at the Pentagon and for the Adjutant General's Office in Germany. She worked at Southern Funeral Home in Nashville. In 1960, Miller-Perry served as a clerk typist for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, working with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In 1968, she was a field representative and observer during the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike. She became director of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for the Nashville area in 1975.

In 1990, Miller-Perry co-founded Contempora magazine with her husband, Dr. L.O.P. Perry. She established The Tennessee Tribune in 1991. Additionally, she founded the Greater Nashville Black Chamber of Commerce in 1998 and created the Anthony J. Cebrun Journalism Center in partnership with Dell Computers in the same year. She also founded the Nashville chapter of the Coalition of 100 Black Women Les Gemmes, Inc. Miller-Perry was involved in the construction of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., meeting facility in Nashville.

Miller-Perry served multiple terms on the boards of directors for the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and the NNPA Fund. She received the NNPA Lifetime Achievement Award on January 25, 2019, during the NNPA Mid-Winter training conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Ben Chavis, President/CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, described her as the "Queen Mother of the Black Press."

"As Queen Mother of the Black Press, Rosetta Perry exemplified the genius and conscious commitment of the Black Press to freedom, justice and equality by NNPA," Chavis said. "The living legacy of Rosetta Miller-Perry is vital to the future sustainability and progress of the Black Press of America. We pledge to keep Rosetta's memory alive as we approach the 200th Anniversary of the Black Press in 2027."