Larry McCoy: A Success Story

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Larry McCoy is an Alcorn State University (ASU) alumnus and author of the book ‘Fatherless’ which was published in 2020 by Turner Lawrence Cook Publishing.

McCoy was born on September 28th, 1952 in Rosedale, Mississippi. As a young boy growing up in the South, he faced many hardships as the second oldest of seven children. There was no male figure in the household, therefore, McCoy’s mother was forced to work long hours as a sharecropper to make a living for her family on a small plantation in Beulah, Mississippi. At the age of nine, McCoy was forced to work in the cotton fields to help with the family income. People who chopped and picked cotton worked from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm and were paid $3.00 per day. “No matter your age, if you were tall enough, you worked in the field because we needed the money at the time,” said McCoy.

While in high school, McCoy received a job working at a service station upon which he kept until he graduated in 1972. At the time he was not interested in attending college because only a few people in his extended family had graduated high school and only one person had attended college, so college was not a priority. But through prayer and a willingness to succeed, McCoy attended Coahoma Community College (CCC) and majored in Political Science. In 1974, he graduated with an Associate’s degree and became the first member of his family to graduate from college. Newly motivated, he attended Alcorn State to attain a Bachelor’s degree upon which he received in 1976.

Throughout McCoy’s life he, as many other people, had his ups and downs. The only difference is he decided to chronicle certain parts of his life through writing. His book, ‘Fatherless’ is about a typical situation were fathers abandon their children. It is about a young man’s hardships in the Delta growing up in a single-parent household. The book is filled with historical events of African American history. Most of his characters were inspired by people he knew, with the main characters being members from his family. “This book is a composite of my life, the lives of the children that I was around, and the adults that were mentors of mine who influenced me,” McCoy stated. He created this book to tell the story from a small child’s perspective. He stated, “This book is not a story of a sad boy whose daddy left, and he cried all of the time. This is a book about people who have overcome great obstacles. It is about poor people who have faced severe problems and used ingenuity to face those problems.”

McCoy is currently residing in Brandon, Mississippi. He is semi-retired after thirty-five years of running his counseling center and nursing agency businesses. In his spare time he loves to write and participate in karaoke. Along with his book, ‘Fatherless’, he has another book entitled, ‘The Last of the Mississippi Juke Joints’. McCoy is currently writing the following new books, ‘The Love Family Reunion’, ‘The Robbery on the Pee Vine Truck’, and ‘Done Got Over and The Trial’.