Let's go.

Welcome to Citizen.

We got a very special guest today, Old Miss Professor Rankin-Shirling.

Hopefully I'm saying that, right.

I don't know how else you would pronounce that to be

honest rankin yeah yeah that's it where uh let's let's get into you uh your background a little bit

where you grow up i grow up in a little town in the mississippi delta uh called yazoo city

mississippi y-z-Z-O-O.

It's, the whole region is a very distinct region of Mississippi.

It's flat, almost treeless in lots of places, lots of cotton.

There's a big difference in wealth.

They're very wealthy people there, very, very impoverished people there.

Overall, it's probably 80 to 85% black, 80 to 85% impoverished. and the wealth line kind of runs right along the race line.

So that's a strange thing.

I mean, I grew up a minority in my town, which was 80% black.

But the two cultures do mix really well there, and it's created a type of culture that produces lots of musicians, lots of writers.

And we know how to have a good time there.

It's kind of close to the river, and so it's a little bit, it's like a subculture of Mississippi, for sure.

That's interesting. how did you uh get into i guess uh academia what was uh what was high school like what made you decide to

to yeah man i'm the least likely person to have become an academic. I really hated school.

I made great grades because my dad was a disciplinarian.

But I just didn't really like school.

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