Exhibit Case #1: Growing Up in Mississippi

Portrait of Sonny Montgomery as a toddler, circa 1921.

Montgomery, second row, fourth from the left, is pictured here as a member of the Mississippi State University varsity men's basketball team during his collegiate years at MSU, 1939-1943.

This certificate was presented to Sonny Montgomery in 1935 in recognition of his achievement of lettering in junior high football at Kate M. Griffin Junior High School in Meridian, Mississippi.

Sonny Montgomery is pictured with his mother, Mrs. Emily Tims Jones. Montgomery's father died when Sonny was 10 years old after a long battle with tuberculosis, and his mother remarried Mr. James Tims two years later.

Sonny Montgomery, second from right, is pictured with his fellow managers of the Mississippi State University football team. Montgomery, who played football in high school, served as a manager for the MSU team while he was in college.

This is a report card for Sonny Montgomery while he was a student at Mississippi State University, then called Mississippi State College, in 1942. It was mailed to his stepfather, Mr. J.W. Tims, who was living in nearby West Point, Mississippi at the time, with Montgomery's mother.

This is a belt clip that belonged to Sonny Montgomery when he was a student at the McCallie School, a military preparatory school in Chattanooga, Tennessee, that he attended from his sophomore to his senior years of high school before attending what is now Mississippi State University.