There's MORE to the the "Mississippi Story"

People are always talking about how 'ignorant', 'uneducated', 'depressed' and 'deprived'
people (especially black people) in Mississippi are/were.

But there is MORE to the "Mississippi Story" than people know or want to hear.

My grandfather (my mother's father ) from little Mantee , Mississippi attended and graduated from a private high school in Arkansas . He went on to attend and graduate from prestigious Tuskegee Institute (May 1930).   He came back to Mississippi where he taught and was the principal of a school.  His mother, my great grandmother, was a teacher.   She and her husband owned 100 acres of land ( which is still in the family -heir property of my Mom and her siblings)  His aunt owned a store in Mantee.  My father (from West Point,MS ) graduated from Kentucky State with a dual major of Chemistry and French then graduated from Meharry Medical School in Nashville , TN . He was a captain in the Air Force and Air Force surgeon. He returned to Mississippi and practiced medicine for 35 years in Tupelo.

My aunt (my father's sister) says that at one time there were 4 (black) doctors who lived on their street when they were growing up.   My mother graduated from Tennessee State University and was a teacher ...her mother was a teacher ...and her mother's mother was a teacher.
 

I repeat: 'There is MUCH MORE to the 

"Mississippi Story" than people 

know or want to hear.'

Guess what???!! I tell those stories...

through my poems ! 

NOTE: I was recently thrilled to find my grandfather's college diploma. May 29, 1930 Tuskegee Institute.   It is VERY tattered and torn...but still a GEM