Almost 70 percent of U.S. ag exports travel the upper Mississippi River and the Illinois waterway system.

My mother, a teacher, encouraged me to use my creativity as an actual way to make a living, and my father, a Mississippi physician, did two things. First, he taught me that all human beings should be treated equally because no one is better than anyone else, and he never pressured me to become a doctor.

I want all Mississippians to know that every man and woman of every region, every background, every race, every class, and every home in our state has my admiration and my respect.

The attorney general would call at 5 o'clock in the evening and say: 'Tomorrow morning we are going to try to integrate the University of Mississippi. Get us a memo on what we're likely to do, and what we can do if the governor sends the National Guard there.'

Mom came from what has been called the poorest place in America - Lake Providence, Louisiana. She was born on the south side of the Mississippi which was mainly African American and even poorer than the rest.

I'm floored that the House leadership would turn its back on job creation for Mississippians.

It was very clear to me in 1965, in Mississippi, that, as a lawyer, I could get people into schools, desegregate the schools, but if they were kicked off the plantations - and if they didn't have food, didn't have jobs, didn't have health care, didn't have the means to exercise those civil rights, we were not going to have success.

Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.

Mississippi's loose campaign finance laws allow lawyers and companies to contribute heavily to the judges they appear before. That is terrible for justice, since the courts are teeming with perfectly legal conflicts of interest.

The Klan had used fear, intimidation and murder to brutally oppress over African-Americans who sought justice and equality and it sought to respond to the young workers of the civil rights movement in Mississippi in the same way.

Freedom Summer, the massive voter education project in Mississippi, was 1964. I graduated from high school in 1965. So becoming active was almost a rite of passage.

The next thing I wrote was in a writing class at night school. It was about a poor woman who worked at a dime store and who was all alone for Christmas in Laurel, Mississippi.

Back when we was in school in Mississippi, we had Little Black Sambo. That's what you learned: Anytime something was not good, or anytime something was bad in some kinda way, it had to be called black. Like, you had Black Monday, Black Friday, black sheep... Of course, everything else, all the good stuff, is white. White Christmas and such.

They cried. Yes, yes, they cried. Cried more tears than the Mississippi could hold, but those tears never washed away their faith?

"I thought how lovely and how strange a river is. A river is a river, always there, and yet the water flowing through it is never the same water and is never still. It's always changing and is always on the move. And over time the river itself changes too. It widens and deepens as it rubs and scours, gnaws and kneads, eats and bores its way through the land. Even the greatest rivers- the Nile and the Ganges, the Yangtze and he Mississippi, the Amazon and the great grey-green greasy Limpopo all set about with fever trees-must have been no more than trickles and flickering streams before they grew into mighty rivers.

Almost 70 percent of U.S. ag exports travel the upper Mississippi River and the Illinois waterway system.

My mother a teacher encouraged me to use my creativity as an actual way to make a living and my father a Mississippi physician did two things. First he taught me that all human beings should be treated equally because no one is better than anyone else and he never pressured me to become a doctor.

Since I was a kid I've had an absolute obsession with particular kinds of American music. Mississippi Delta blues of the Thirties Chicago blues of the Fifties West Coast music of the mid-Sixties - but I'd never really touched on dark Americana.

The attorney general would call at 5 o'clock in the evening and say: 'Tomorrow morning we are going to try to integrate the University of Mississippi. Get us a memo on what we're likely to do and what we can do if the governor sends the National Guard there.'

My mom's collard greens. No one else in the world can make them like hers. I'm not just saying that because she's my mom. She's got some Mississippi secret. I could seriously eat them every day.

I'm floored that the House leadership would turn its back on job creation for Mississippians.

Finally the ecological health of the Mississippi River and its economic importance to the many people that make their living or seek their recreation is based on a healthy river system.

It was very clear to me in 1965 in Mississippi that as a lawyer I could get people into schools desegregate the schools but if they were kicked off the plantations - and if they didn't have food didn't have jobs didn't have health care didn't have the means to exercise those civil rights we were not going to have success.

When I was growing up in Mississippi - it was good Southern food... but I also grew up with a Greek family when other kids were eating fried okra we were eating steamed artichokes. So I think it played a big part in my healthy cooking.