MISSISSIPPI...Believe It!

Yes, We Can!
Get To know Us, Before You Judge Us?

                                                                                 

Mississippi's most famous political figure, Jefferson Davis (b.Kentucky, 1808–89), came to the state as a very young child, was educated at West Point, and served in the US Army from (1828 - 1835). He resigned a seat in Congress in 1846 to enter the Mexican War from which he returned home a hero after leading his famous regiment, the 1st Mississippi Rifles, at the Battle ofBuena Vista, Mexico. From (1853 - 1857), he served as secretary of war in the cabinet of President Franklin Pierce.  Davis was representing Mississippi in the US Senate in (1861) when the state withdrew from the Union. In February (1861), he was chosen president of the Confederacy, an office he held until the defeat of the South in (1865). Imprisoned for two years after the Civil War (though he was never tried), Davis lived the last years of his life at Beauvoir, an estate on the Mississippi Gulf Coast given to him by an admirer. There he wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, completed eight years before his death in New Orleans. Some of the foremost authors of 20th-century America had their origins in Mississippi. Supreme among them is William Faulkner (1897–1962), whose literary career began in 1924 with the publication of The Marble Faun, a book of poems. His novels included such classics as The Sound and the Fury (1929), Light in August (1932), and Absalom, Absalom! (1936). Faulkner received two Pulitzer Prizes (one posthumously), and in 1949 was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Richard Wright (1908–60), born near Natchez, spent his childhood years in Jackson. He moved to Memphis as a young man, and from there migrated to Chicago; he lived his last years in Paris. A powerful writer and a leading spokesman for the black Americans of his generation, Wright is best remembered for his novel Native Son (1940) and for Black Boy (1945), an autobiographical account of his Mississippi childhood. Other native Mississippians of literary renown (and Pulitzer Prize winners) are Eudora Welty (1909–2001), Tennessee Williams (Thomas Lanier Williams, 1911–83), and playwright Beth Henley (b.1952). Welty's work, like Faulkner's, is set in Mississippi; her best-known novels include Delta Wedding (1946), The Ponder Heart (1954), and Losing Battles (1970). Although Tennessee Williams spent most of his life outside Mississippi, some of his most famous plays are set in the state. Other Mississippi authors are Hodding Carter (b.Louisiana, 1907–72), Shelby Foote (b.1916), Walker Percy (b.Alabama, 1916–1990), and Willie Morris (1934–99). Most recent is John Grisham (1955), from Southhaven. He graduated from Mississippi State University  before attending the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981 and practiced criminal law for about a decade. He also served in the House of Representatives in Mississippi from (January 1984 to September 1990). Beginning writing in 1984, he had his first novel A Time To Kill published in June (1989). As of (2008), his books had sold over 250 million copies worldwide. A Galaxy British Book Awards winner, Grisham is one of only three authors to sell two million copies on a first printing, the others being  Tom Clancy and J. K. Rowling. Grisham's first best seller was The Firm. Released in (1991), it sold more than seven million copies. The book was adapted as a feature film. In addition, seven more of his novels: The Chamber, The Client, A Painted House, The Pelican Brief, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury and A Time To Kill, were adapted as movies. His books have been translated into 29 languages and published worldwide. His other best-selling books include: The Testament, The Summons and The Broker.