Mississippi Native: C. Liegh McInnis

"Mississippi has given me everything that I need to survive and thrive even while missing so many opportunities to be the vanguard state that we have the ability to be."

What does it mean to call Mississippi home? Why do people choose to leave or live in this weird, wonderful, and sometimes infuriating place? Today we hear from poet, short story writer, Prince scholar, and retired instructor of English at Jackson State University C. Liegh McInnis.

Featured contributor C. Liegh McInnis lives in Jackson.

Where are you from?

I was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi and lived my entire life between Clarksdale and Jackson, Mississippi. My mother is from Clarksdale. My pops is from Jackson, and they met at Jackson State University in 1968.

How long have you lived in Mississippi?

I have lived in Mississippi my entire life, which is 53 years.

What does “home” mean to you? How does Mississippi fit into that definition?

Home is the place where one receives a foundation and blueprint of one’s personal and communal self, which teaches one’s worth, beauty, power, and possibility, with the comfort of remaining a haven for where one can take refuge when necessary. Mississippi, despite its horrible history of white supremacy, has been all of this for me because of the Afro-Mississippians who taught me to love myself by loving the culture that produced me.

How have you cultivated community in Mississippi? Who are the people who have made you feel rooted here?

Community was cultivated for me early by my parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins and community people who simply loved me unconditionally while displaying the genius of blackness daily. This early existence gave me the understanding that I was of worth and had the ability and right to pursue whatever I desired. Additionally, my parents shared their love of the arts with me, and I gravitated to music and literature with creative writing (poetry and short stories) becoming my primary loves. By the time I got to college, I began to seek other folks who identified as writers with whom to commune, and those have been the people who have made me feel most rooted here. However, I must mention my pops’s lifelong work as a civil rights activist and later political party executive. This rooted me in the history of activism, which continues to inform my writing.

Growing up, C. Liegh played on the Friars Point baseball and basketball teams.