Mississippi on My Mind

Included in this book are photographs, poetry, and narrative anecdotes looking back on the author’s 40-year (and still counting) career as a journalist, photo-journalist, and author while working for three Pulitzer Prize winning newspapers in the South. Dickerson is known for seeking interaction with his photographic subjects.

Featured in this book are portraits of ordinary people who have distinguished themselves in various ways, such as Lt. Col. Sarah Deal, the first female pilot for the U.S. Marines Corps (she was attending air traffic school at the U.S. naval base in Millington, north of Memphis, when the defense secretary announced that pilot training would be offered to women in the U.S. Marine Corps.) . . . an old warrior who got to fly a B-17 bomber again after more than three decades . . .  the midwife birth of a Mississippi Delta baby . . .  the Ghost of Annandale, a spine tingling story associated with the Chapel of the Cross, one of the most historic churches in Mississippi . . . and a look Back at Trader Jon’s, Pensacola, Florida’s most famous strip joint/safe haven for Navy fighter pilots and Broadway playwrights and British princes—along with entertainment celebrities such as Waylon Jennings, Ringo Starr, Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, the Bangles, Marshall Chapman, B.B. King, Suzy Bogguss, Rosanne Cash, Marty Stuart, rock ‘n’ roll legend Carl Perkins, Jimi Jamison of the rock group Survivor, Rolling Stone Ron Wood, hit songwriter and recording artist Deborah Allen, Faith Hill, Leon Redbone, teen star Tiffany, Lynn Anderson,  R&B legend Bobby Womack, Shelby Lynne, Holly Dunn, Paulette Carlson  legendary record producer Chips Moman, Elvis Presley’s first guitarist and co-inventor of rock ‘n’ roll, legendary guitarist Scotty Moore, a poem about a female Mississippi surgeon who operates in the nude (no nudity involved iln the book) . . . Mississippi author Willie Morris (North Toward Home and My Dog Skip) and others.

Roughly 1/3 of the images in the book relate to Mississippi, 1/3 relate to Memphis, and 1/3 relate to Nashville.