[2] She had a recurring role as Aunt Etta Kibby in the American television series In the Heat of the Night,[2] and is an NAACP Image Award nominee for acting in film A Time to Kill.
[3][4] Stewart was born in Greenwood, Mississippi,[5] the daughter of Hattie (née Leonard) and Thomas Harris.
[9] Stewart acted in the feature films Body Snatchers,[10] Livin' Large,[11] Mississippi Damned and Girls Trip.
[4] She has made guest appearances on television series Matlock, Walker, Texas Ranger,[12] ER and Touched by an Angel.
[15] In 1994, Stewart appeared in the TV movies One Christmas as Evangeline[16] and A Passion for Justice: The Hazel Brannon Smith Story as Henrietta.
[17] She portrayed Memaw, the grandmother of Halle Downing, in the Oprah Winfrey Network movie First Christmas.
[20] Starting in 1990, she was a professor at the College of Visual and Performing Arts for Alabama State University, also chairing the theater department.