My Brother J-Boy is written by Hazel Hall, also known as Hazel Janell Meredith, a younger sister of Civil Rights pioneer, James Meredith. The story is set in rural Kosciusko, Mississippi on their family farm during the Jim Crow south.  The author is the mother of RDLN graduate Meredith McGee and has attended RDLN events at the UN Commission on the Status of Women and our National Network Assembly in North Carolina.

James Meredith attempted to enroll in the University of Mississippi before any other African-Americans had been accepted and was finally admitted under a 1961 court order. Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent Federal marshalls to protect him, and violence ensued.  In 1966, he started a "March against Fear" and was shot by a sniper.  Other Civil Rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., continued the march in his name. 

Meredith McGee has written a biography of her uncle James Meredith, which has been published by Praeger.  Meredith is an entrepreneur who has her own business (Typing Solutions & Resumes, Etc.), through which she also does business development consulting.  She also heads her family's investment club.  She earned her master's degree from Antioch through RDLN; her field project was to train community people in redistricting with her Sponsoring Organization, Southern Echo.  Ms. McGee formerly worked with the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives, which assists small farmers and helps save Black-owned land.