Jimmy King
We sit on the concrete steps that protrude out of the grass on an empty lot near the corner of Pearl and Minerva, I on a white handkerchief that Jimmy King has put down and he on the cold concrete. I've known King, whom I call Mr. Jimmy, for almost 10 years. He is the proprietor of the Subway Lounge, in the basement of the abandoned Summer's Hotel, which opened Dec. 16, 1966. He is also the elegant presence in the documentary "Last of the Mississippi Jukes," which just debuted on the Black STARZ network.
Sally Slavinski
Sally Slavinski, 36, slides into a chair in Hal & Mal's 30 minutes before we open. She apologizes for being late, explaining that she just ran 11 miles in training for the Mardi Gras half-marathon on Feb. 16. Dressed in a gray Berkeley zip-up sweatshirt over gray sweatpants with a New Zealand All Blacks rugby cap over her straw-blond hair, she opens a container of strawberry Dannon yogurt and sips from an Aquafina bottled water. It would take 20 pages to list all that she's done in her short life, starting with a childhood in Long Island, N.Y., a biology degree from Michigan State, working summers in Yellowstone, veterinary school, working with the Heifer Project in Uganda, practicing small-animal medicine in Ohio, working with the World Health Organization for three months in India, working in Martha's Vineyard and acquiring a degree in public health from Berkeley. But what does she do now?
JACKSONIAN: Ken Stiggers
"It's like a box of chocolates: You never know what you're gonna get," quotes Ken Stiggers, 41, of the City of Jackson's Public Education Government network studio (formerly officially called Public Access, and still referred to that way casually). He runs the local studio almost singlehandedly. "I wear 87 hats," he says with a deep Barry White-like "heh-heh-heh." Standing in the cramped base of operations of the studio, with videos lining the white concrete walls, he wears a black turtleneck sweater, dark jeans, brown leather shoes and a bomber jacket—a slick outfit that matches his build perfectly, if not his demeanor.
Jack Stevens
Jack Stevens greets me at the door of his Belhaven Heights triplex from the comfort of his wheelchair, a result of an unfortunate accident three years ago that keeps him for the most part immobile. A cloud of faded red hair surrounds his round bespectacled face. At 52 he's led an active, theatrical life in his hometown of Jackson. Growing up he attended "Power, Bailey and Murrah," and in his effervescent way, he makes them sound like the holy trinity of schools. He started acting while at Murrah and went on to graduate from Ole Miss in 1972 with a major in theater and a minor in English and history. He tried out for Yale's renowned theater department three times and was second alternate twice.
Blythe Daigle
Blythe Daigle doesn't look like your stereotypical activist. Dressed conservatively in a gray turtleneck, blue jeans and black clunky shoes, she resembles the other inhabitants of her Belhaven apartment complex. But, unlike most people who are only three years out of college, Daigle, a Louisiana native, has already completed a two-year stint in Paraguay as a Peace Corps volunteer.
Bill Minor
Bill Minor is proof that the best way to keep a muscle fit is to exercise it. Rigorously. When I arrived at his Broadmoor home the Friday after Thanksgiving, the brain of this 80-year-old journalist and columnist immediately started churning, and for the next two hours, he exploded with facts, details and opinions and quirkobilia. I didn't need to ask a single question of the man who has made a career out of asking questions in the state of Mississippi.
Carolyn Renee Morris
Carolyn Morris—the storyteller, singer, songwriter, connector—is the product of the two strong women who raised her. The 40-year-old South Jacksonian was born in the University Medical Center in 1962 and then bounced back and forth between her feminist mother, Tahira'h Abubakr, and her more traditional grandmother, Gussie Seals. Abubakr raised Morris in New York City and Indianapolis to be politically aware and determined and independent. She visited Miss Gussie, a former sharecropper, back here in Pocahontas and learned the feminine arts. "Otherwise, I'd never have put on a dress," Morris says, laughing softly as she nibbles at a tofu burrito outside High Noon Café.
Rob McDuff
Robert B. McDuff, 46, looks too rumpled and carefree to be about to argue the Democrats' congressional redistricting case before the U.S. Supreme Court in December. But, a cursory look around the Jackson attorney's office—in a slightly crumbling North Congress house with crooked steps and peeling gray paint—reveals that he's about more than power. He wants to make a difference.
Keke Lowe
Marquise "Keke" Lowe has lived in Jackson his whole 19-year-old life. Lowe, a slim teenager with amused chestnut eyes and a small, sculpted face, grew up in Shady Oaks, attended Bailey Magnet High School and now lives Downtown. He's studying computer science and business at Tougaloo College so he can own his own computer-programming company. "Technology is trying to run things right now," he says.
Previous Next