early life and career hystercine rankin was born on september 11, 1929, in jefferson county, mississippi. she was the third child of her parents, laula and denver gray. her mother, laula, taught at a one-room schoolhouse, while her father, denver gray, was a sharecropper. in 1939, her father was shot and killed by a white man for unknown reasons. following his burial, rankin and her siblings moved in with her grandmother, alice whelman…