William Alexander Percy was a lawyer, planter, and poet from Greenville, Mississippi. His autobiography Lanterns on the Levee became a bestseller. His father LeRoy Percy was the last United States Senator from Mississippi elected by the legislature. In a largely Protestant state, the younger Percy championed the Roman Catholicism of his French mother.

Greenville is the ninth-most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, and the largest city by population in the Mississippi Delta region. It is the county seat of Washington County. The population was 29,670 at the 2020 Census.