Biography of Meredith Coleman McGee
Meredith Coleman McGee, born July 20, 1963 in Los Angeles, California, USA), is a black American Mississippi writer, a poet, a book publisher, an acquisition editor, a community activist, and a business owner who authored eight works. Her given name, Meredith Sealey Coleman, is three family surnames. Meredith is her maternal family’s surname. Sealey is her step grandfather John Sealey’s surname who her paternal grandmother was married to at the time of her birth. Coleman is her paternal family’s surname.
She is the widow of William Earl McGee Jr. who died June 2, 2021, in Jackson, Mississippi at age 55. The couple were happily married 21 years and eight months. McGee was preceded in death by her older brothers Robert Joseph Coleman, II who reportedly, in 1989, succumbed to a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his temple, and her father’s second son Ronnie Barry who died from a heart attack in Chicago on Father’s Day in 2019. McGee is the oldest living child of Robert Joseph Coleman and Hazel Janell Meredith Coleman Hall (both published authors). McGee has three younger sisters, Evalyn, Willa, and Jozzlyn.
McGee, an avid reader, is also a family historian. Her most noted book is a biography James Meredith: Warrior and the America that created him on her famous uncle James Howard Meredith, who rose to prominence in 1962 when he became the first dark skinned black American to attend Mississippi’s notoriously all white flagship college, the University of Mississippi, on September 30, 1962. The biography contains family history which includes Sam Cobb, a Choctaw Chief, 1795-_ who abandoned his log cabin, while he and others hid in the woods in Attala County to avoid the treacherous trip to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma); and Josiah Abigail Patterson (JAP) Campbell, 1830 -1917, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Confederate Army, a Mississippi Supreme Court Justice, and a slave holder.
McGee is a beneficiary of the Jackson Public Schools, Jackson, Mississippi; Piney Woods Country Life School, Piney Woods, Mississippi; and Hinds Agricultural High School and Utica Junior College in Utica, Mississippi. McGee’s work ethics developed at Piney Woods in the seventh grade where she worked a commercial presser in the school’s laundry business. She entered a workforce development painting job at age 16 and excelled as a painting trimmer. She managed her uncle James Meredith’s property after high school. McGee’s first business venture was a candy store which she operated from her mother’s living room on Liberty Hill Road in North Jackson while serving as a convenience store clerk in 1987 for her uncle Arthur C. Meredith. He taught McGee bookkeeping basics, how to control inventory, and how to markup retail items.
McGee worked in the non-profit industry for eight years for the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives as a business developer/administrative assistant; Voice of Calvary Ministries as a data entry clerk/assistant director of development; and Southern Echo as a community organizer. She has been an entrepreneur for over two decades. Today, she manages and operates a resume service and a small press. McGee chairs Community Library Mississippi where she organizes poetry contests which produce emerging writers. She hosts book club meetings, reading fairs, and other intellectual events and contests in her home state of Mississippi.
She founded Heirs United Investment Club in 1997 and co-founded Heirsskymallcom Inc – Shopheirs.com. McGee was formerly the acquisition editor of Mose Dantzler Press (2011-2013). She founded Meredith Etc in 2013. Since then, she has acquired dozens of manuscripts and published 31 books by 20 authors; their stories appeal to readers from various backgrounds and ethnicities.
McGee’s works include a children’s book series – Moses Meredith Cultural Arts Children’s Book Series named for her maternal grandfather which features the Nashida character; Baby Bubba and Kay, a picture book; My Picture Dictionary, a children’s reference book, My First Book Series, a primer; Married to Sin, a memoir on Darlene Collier; and Odyssey a collection of her poems, speeches, other writings, and three new books, Juneteenth: Freedom Day, a children’s book; Every Inch Love Will, a memoir on her late husband; and Midnight Moon, her first novel set in Midnight, Humphreys County, Mississippi in the mid-1980s.
McGee obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Legal Administration from the University of West Florida in Pensacola, Florida and a Master of Arts degree in Rural Community Development and Public Policy from Antioch University McGregor known now as Antioch University Midwest in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
References
Ware, Alexis. Jacksonian Meredith McGee. (Jan 4-10, 2017) Jackson Free Press, 3. http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2017/jan/04/meredith-mcgee/
Hathorn, Taylor McKay. Jackson Free Press, The Learning Tree Grows Mississippi Readers — Mississippi news break https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2073163998331/the-learning-tree-grows-mississippi-readers
Neal-Vincent, Janice K. (Nov. 5-11, 2020) Mississippi Link, 15. Community Library Mississippi Goes Virtual – Holiday Book Festival calls for spellers and poets
Meredith Coleman McGee, Author/Acquisition Editor/Publisher – Meredith Etc
Meredith Etc 