Biography of Meredith Coleman McGee

Meredith Coleman McGee, a highly accomplished intellectual, who was 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. McGee who operates a résumé service, a book publishing company, is a contributing and freelance writer for three newspapers, and is the author of 13 books. McGee chairs Community Library Mississippi. She is the chief financial partner of an investment club, she maintains several blog sites, and she designs WordPress blogs.

McGee obtained recent honors including being inducted into the Dear Black Woman READER SPOTLIGHT: during Black History Month on February 24, 2024. She was listed a member of the Mississippi Black Arts by the Jackson Advocate via the 2024 Black History Edition – African Americans & the Arts. She was also the Black History Spotlight featuring her new biography on the famed jazz singer Lady Day entitled Billie Holiday: Jazz Singer at Farish Street Baptist Church in the Historic Farish Street District in Jackson, Mississippi on February 11, 2024. The Mississippi Link newspaper covered a story on Meredith Coleman McGee by Chris Young during Black History Month noting her 13th book: Billie Holiday: Jazz Singer.

Her given name, Meredith Sealey Coleman, is three family surnames. Meredith is her maternal family’s surname. Sealey is her step grandfather John W. 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 the late Robert Joseph Coleman (04.10.1939 – 06.30.2023) 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. 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 was 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. 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. Events are in person and virtual.

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; her company has produced the works of 22 authors and published 38 books; the stories appeal to readers from various age groups and diverse 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. Other books include 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. Her recent books include, Baby Bubba and Kay, Juneteenth: Freedom Day, children’s books; 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. Her 13th book, Billie Holiday: Jazz Singer, a scholarly biography of Lady Day, was released January 14, 2024.

McGee is a long-term contributing writer of the Jackson Advocate. She is a freelance writer for the Mississippi Free Press. She contributes occasionally to the Mississippi Link. Her writings reflect a broad range of topics covering stories on Mississippi icons, redistricting, etc.

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

Click to access June-2-2022.pdf

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. The Learning Tree Grows Mississippi Readers — Mississippi news break. Jackson Free Press, https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2073163998331/the-learning-tree-grows-mississippi-readers 

McGee, Meredith Coleman. (Sept. 30, 2023). Remembering Mississippi Freedom Fighter Hollis Watkins Muhammad. Mississippi Free Press. Jackson, MS https://www.mississippifreepress.org/36330/remembering-mississippi-freedom-fighter-hollis-watkins-muhammad 

McGee, Merdith Coleman. (Aug. 11, 2021). Redistricting Matters: Mississippians Could Have Fairer Representation With Newly Drawn Maps, Mississippi Free Press. Jackson, MS. https://www.mississippifreepress.org/26399/redistricting-matters-mississippians-could-have-fairer-representation-with-newly-drawn-maps.

McGee, Meredith Coleman. “Why redistricting matters to Mississippians.” The Mississippi Link. July 28-August 3, 2022. Local. 15.

McGee, Meredith. C. Rolling Fork: The birthplace of Muddy Waters, Jackson Advocate, Oct. 8 – 14, 2015, 3C.

Neal-Vincent, Janice K. (Nov. 5-11, 2020) Mississippi Link, 15. Community Library Mississippi Goes Virtual – Holiday Book Festival calls for spellers and poets.

Young, Chris, Jackson’s Own Meredith Coleman McGee has done it again: Billie Holiday: Jazz Singer her 13th book, and 2024 is just starting. The Mississippi Link, Cover story. 1A. https://themississippilink.com/news/jacksons-own-meredith-coleman-mcgee-has-done-it-again-billie-holiday-jazz-singer-her-13th-book-in-11-years-and-2024-is-just-starting/

Waibel, Elizabeth, April 2, 2012. Meredith McGee. JFP. https://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2012/apr/02/meredith-mcgee

Meredith Coleman McGee, Author/Acquisition Editor/Publisher – Meredith Etc

Meredith Coleman McGee – YouTube