Minnie P. Stewart was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. She graduated from Jackson State College in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology. She received her first teaching position in 1970 in Waukegan, Illinois. She taught thirty years in Illinois public schools and in her hometown of Jackson from2000-2003. She received many awards as a teacher, including the Golden Apple Award in 1998, and was named in Who’s Who Among American Teachers in 1996 and 1998. Stewart is the mother of three adult children and grandmother to two wonderful grandsons. She lives in Rockford, Illinois, with her husband of forty-eight years.