Billie Jean Young is on the faculty of Judson College where she serves as Artist-in-Residence. She is president of the Southwest Alabama Association of Rural and Minority Women and director of The Drama Project. Young is a graduate of Samford University's Cumberland School of Law (J.D.) and obtained a B. A. in English from Judson College. An accomplished director, actor, writer and orator, she was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1984. She was featured in Essence Magazine's "Legends in Our Time," and received the Mississippi Governor's Award for Artistic Achievement, among numerous others. Young is the author of a book of poetry, Fear Not the Fall , and is at work on a historical play, JIMMILEE, and a memoir chronicling 25 years performing Fannie Lou Hamer: This Little Light... , her one-woman show on the Mississippi Civil Rights activist.