Morgan Freeman promotes reading at Mississippi Early Learning Alliance event

• When asked what advice he would give an 8-year-old from a small town in Mississippi with big-time dreams, he replied, “Get a book. Reading is the staff of life.”

Morgan Freeman recalled coming of age in Mississippi, speaking on the importance of community and education, during a fireside chat with about 200 supporters of the Mississippi Early Learning Alliance on Tuesday.

One of the Academy Award-winning actor’s first memories is of roughhousing with a friend at an early age. He told of when a neighbor called the two over for a drink of water. The elderly lady handed his friend a cup, followed by Freeman. His friend drank it normally, but Freeman took gulps, he said, throwing his head back and making strange sounds. The neighbor was horrified, at what the five-year-old was doing. “I am a horse,” a young, imaginative Freeman answered.

That was one of several stories Freeman regaled the audience with during his 40-minute question-and-answer session to support the Alliance’s inaugural “Big Voices for Little Children” event.

The Alliance stresses that when Mississippi prioritizes the first five years of a child’s life, the foundation is laid for a strong future. Each day in Mississippi, about 100 children are born. Roughly 200,000 children under the age of five live in the Magnolia State.

Freeman said a library card was his prized possession as a child. It allowed him to read classics such as Black Beauty and Moby Dick. The books took him away from rural Mississippi and Chicago, where he spent a part of his youth. Freeman went on to say books aided in his desire to become an actor.

Freeman encouraged parents, teachers, and others who have positive influences on children to encourage reading books. “Buy them,” he advised.

In his youth, he read books about fighter pilots and captains of ships. Today, Freeman flies his own planes and sails his own boats.

Eight decades later, Freeman still credits library cards as his ticket to success. “That was my escape, books.”

When Freeman was attending school in the 1950s, teachers made an impact on his life. One story he told was about misspelling the word “super” early in his schooling. After getting the spelling wrong, the teacher rapped his knuckles five times. “Ask me if I can spell super now. S-U-P-E-R,” he said to laughter.

Now 88 years old, Freeman still remembers the teacher’s name, Ms. Dupree, and the humiliation of having been corrected in front of the entire class.

“Teachers are bulwark against ignorance,” he said. “Bulwark, B-U-L-W-A-R-K.”

Freeman never spoke about his acting awards, his celebrity friends, or his international fame at the day’s event. He focused on his favorite books, his childhood, and his admiration for teachers and nurses, with many leaving the talk feeling as if they had lunch with a friend from high school.

When asked what advice he would give an 8-year-old from a small town in Mississippi with big-time dreams, he replied, “Get a book. Reading is the staff of life.”