In Growing Up In Mississippi, editors Judy H. Tucker and Charline R. McCord provide a collection of essays by 30 notable, still living, Mississippians. From former Governor William Winter and blues great B.B. King to NFL great Jerry Rice and former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Fred Banks, the essays "highlight Mississippi small-town upbringings, where children were insulated in their community" (McPhearson 1). Tucker and McCord met in 1996 at a Eudora Welty festival and have collaborated on other works since that time. Their other collaborations also focus on Mississippi life and southern culture, including Christmas Stories from Mississippi and several editions of Christmas Stories from the South.
The editors provide these essays as a means of highlighting small-town Mississippi life and other aspects of childhood in the South that influenced the development of the successful authors of the essays in Growing Up In Mississippi. For instance, former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Fred Banks describes how his education in Canton, Mississippi influenced his development in a positive manner. As he says of his Catholic School teachers in Canton and those at Lanier High School in Jackson, "Without the education and inspiration my teachers gave me during my childhood...my career would have likely turned out very differently" (McPhearson 1).
The editors' collection of stories is purposefully put together to demonstrate the unique influence growing up in the small-town South had on a number of successful people raised there. As Tucker and McCord (Back Matter) explain, "A Mississippi childhood bestows unique gifts upon its own," and these essays are meant to highlight these gifts. Some of the essays are original in the collection, while others are reprinted or excerpted from previously published works. All of the essays offer insight into the unique experiences of successful adults when they lived ...