As children during the 1950s, Hilliard Lackey and Lillian Troupe often had to skip school to pick cotton with their sharecropping parents. 

They grew up together in the small north Mississippi town of Marks, both raised by devoutly Christian families. 

Marks has struggled with poverty for generations, and problems were compounded by Mississippi’s history of underfunding public education for Black students. Schools remained segregated, and both said it was common for Black children around them to drop out or miss school so they could work in the fields.

“That was the life we knew, the life we inherited,” Hilliard Lackey said. 

Hilliard and Lillian met as classmates in sixth grade, started dating in high school and married in 1966. Despite the challenges of the time, their parents and church leaders encouraged them to be ambitious and succeed.

Today, several members of the Lackey family have doctoral degrees: Hilliard and Lillian Lackey; their daughters, Tahirih Lackey and Dr. Katrina Davis; the couple’s daughter-in-law, Tracy Knight Lackey; and his stepbrother and sister-in-law, Dr. Robert Long and Vanessa Rogers Long.

Pew Research Center found that as of 2023, about 26% of all Black Americans 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 11% have advanced degrees. In Mississippi, 18.5% of Black residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Hilliard Lackey is a longtime professor of urban higher education and lifelong learning at Jackson State University. He attended what was then called Jackson State College, earning his bachelor’s in history and political science, pre-law track, in 1965. (It became Jackson State University in 1974.)

Hilliard Lackey – who later earned a master’s degree in educational administration, an education specialist degree in the same topic, and a doctorate in higher education administration – was the first in his family to go to college. 

“I left home and came to a whole new city, a whole new environment. It’s a college,” he said, looking back on the experience. “And I was astounded, and scared, and frightened and bewildered.”

Lillian, then still named Troupe, attended Coahoma Community College before transferring to what was then called Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College – since 1974, Alcorn State University. She graduated from Alcorn with a bachelor’s in business education in 1966 and earned a masters in education administration from Jackson State in 1974. 

She was still living and working in Marks during community college.

“I went to Coahoma … rode the school bus, came home, got out of my clothes, went to the field, picked cotton,” she said. “And so I picked my way out of the cotton field to Alcorn.”

In June, West Coast Bible College & Seminary awarded Lillian Lackey an honorary doctorate for her years of community service. 

Two of Hilliard and Lillian Lackey’s four children have doctorates. Davis has a medical degree and is a urogynecologist. Tahirih Lackey has a doctorate in civil environmental engineering and is a research hydraulic engineer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center.

Both sisters say their parents’ emphasis on education and success and their religious faith influenced their career paths. 

Davis recounted that every Sunday, each member of the family stood in front of the fireplace and discussed what they’d done that week to achieve their goals. She and her siblings attended a variety of academic and athletic summer programs before and during college.

Hilliard and Lillian Lackey converted from Christianity to the Baha’i faith as adults. They raised their children “essentially as Christian Baha’is,” according to Hilliard Lackey, and let them choose what religion to follow when they were 15 years old.

“They pretty much told us, ‘Whatever you want to be, you can be, and we’ll be there to help you,’” Davis said.

“I would recognize that my parents, they were always helping other people. Like, throughout my whole life they demonstrated those concepts,” Tahirih Lackey said.

“None of us thought we had any barriers,” Davis said. “If there were barriers, they were from our own mental blocks.”

Hilliard Lackey’s stepbrother, Dr. Robert Long, is a dentist in Clarksdale. Long also credits his upbringing for his success, saying his parents raised him and his siblings with a strong work ethic and Christian values.

“They instilled in us that nobody is going to give you anything, nobody is obligated to give you anything,” Long said.

Long grew up in a small rural town in Quitman County, 15 miles from Marks. He had a similar upbringing to Hilliard Lackey. His parents encouraged him to get an education. 

He attended Earlham College, where he majored in biology and found a mentor who inspired him to become a dentist.

He described his undergraduate experience as a “culture shock” and an “academic shock.” He chose to persevere through the challenges.

“I knew I could go home,” he said, “but I didn’t want to go home.”

Vanessa Rogers Long grew up in a middle-class family in the small community of Memphis, Mississippi, and, like most of her family, has lived a life dedicated to service.

She was the first Black hospital administrator for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. She founded Mississippi Delta Connection, which is part of Links Inc. She also mentors teens on service and leadership skills. She has received several honors, including having her sorority,  Alpha Kappa Alpha, dedicate a bench to her at her alma mater, LeMoyne-Owen College. 

“Service is what I do,” she said.

Hilliard and Lillian Lackey are also deeply involved in community service, including their “Lackey Scholars” program inspired by a former teacher. Hillard Lackey estimates they’ve helped more than 500 high school students from Quitman County attend and graduate from Jackson State since 1967. In addition, they mentor dozens of students from Quitman County’s Madison Shannon Palmer High School to act as role models for their peers and the community. 

“That’s just been our thing, it’s always been,” Lillian Lackey said. “To help somebody, if they were hungry, if they were cold, if they were whatever.”

When asked what he would tell first-generation college students, Hilliard Lackey said: “Education is an equalizer. It gives an advantage to the disadvantaged. It levels the legacy playing field.”