Mississippi Native: Louisa Whitfield-Smith

"Mississippi has made me driven and awake, with my sleeves rolled up, deeply rooted in my faith, and with an enduring love of a great hang and doing absolutely nothing on a Sunday."

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 librarian, reader extraordinaire, and community advocate Louisa Whitfield-Smith.

Author with her bog standard teetering, toppling TBR pile, 2021.

Where are you from?

Jackson, Mississippi. My mom’s family has been in Mississippi for six generations. My dad’s folk are out of North Carolina, and I lived in Raleigh, NC for the first eight years of my life. While those first years gave me a lifelong passion for eastern Carolina BBQ, day trips to the mountains and beach, and great public education, Mississippi is undeniably my home.

Why did you leave Mississippi? Where did you go?

First and repeatedly, I left for my education. First to Appalachia, then to outside Philadelphia for undergrad at a Quaker school, then a community development apprenticeship in Kensington, and finally Baton Rouge for my Masters in Library and Information Science (what can I say—I love a capital city in the South). In between these times, I would come home to work, be a caregiver and help manage our family farm in rural Hinds county.

When I was in grad school at LSU, my dean set up a meeting with the legendary, former head of the Mississippi Library Commission, Sharman Smith. Smith sat me down and mapped out the next almost decade of my career. Giving me the “Go Forth” sermon, she told me to get experience in urban, suburban and small town best practices libraries, and to bring that knowledge home. So, I did—mostly on the Kansas side of the Kansas City metro, home of the third best BBQ in the nation behind Eastern North Carolina and the Backyard BBQ Invitational.

Every seven years or so, I take a sabbatical, usually to travel. When I was 27, I circumnavigated the globe. When I was 34, I made two figure eights of the U.S., visiting 43 states and more than three hundred friends and family members.

Why did you return to Mississippi?

I was always pointed home after my education and apprenticeships. I am fortunate that I got here sooner than planned in late 2018 instead of mid-2020.