Mark Braboy
Associate Editor
Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist, author and professor, Alyssa Burton Steele is on a mission to tell the stories of women from the Mississippi Delta.
Steele spoke to mass communications students on April 14 at the eCenter@JSU about her book, “Delta Jewels”, a collection of portraits and first-hand accounts inspired by the memories of her grandmother that pay tribute to 50 African-American women of the Mississippi Delta.
Elayne Hayes-Anthony, director of the Jackson State University Mass Communications Department, said Steele’s visit is a great opportunity for students to hear from a multi-talented media professional.
“We are so glad that Alysia Burton Steele has chosen to share her book with us at Jackson State,” said Anthony. “Her book is a treasure and her multi-media skills will be demonstrated to mass comm students as she answers questions about the field and her most recent research.”
With the memories of her grandmother close at heart, Steele spoke to students about how her relationship with her grandmother inspired the book.
“I started the book because I wasn’t thoughtful enough or insightful enough to interview my grandmother while she was still here. And when I moved to Mississippi and saw the cotton fields, I saw the Delta, I started thinking about my grandmother,” said Steele.
Steele added: “I never asked my grandmother of her childhood. I was too busy butting heads with her and fighting over things that didn’t matter and I wasn’t asking her about her. And she passed away 20 years ago, so I couldn’t pick up the phone and call her and be like, ‘you are not going to believe what I’m seeing in Mississippi.’”
The project expanded from a personal independent project after publications such as Southern Living and the New York Times got word of it. From there, she partnered with the Delta Center for Cultural Learning at Delta State University to work and complete the book.
“I wanted to see beautiful, strong, dignified, black women from my grandmother’s generation. These women are often overlooked and they’re the ones who held it down. They’re strong beautiful women who deserve to have these stories told,” said Steele.
Some of the stories from these women are heartwarming and funny, while others provide emotional and chilling accounts of life in the Delta during the Jim Crow Era and Civil Rights Movement. The stories detail accounts of these women overcoming adversity, finding true love, and other themes that mirror many of the social problems seen today.
Behind her bright white smile and glowing disposition hides a woman who endured hardships in not only the creation of the book, but throughout her life.
Growing up, Steele was raised by her grandparents in Harrisburg, Pa. after her parents were divorced when she was three years old. She started practicing her craft when she was 15 and received many scholarships to college to pursue photography but her grandmother did not approve of her career choice.
“I got scholarships to college, but my grandmother didn’t let me go. She said how many black photographers do you know? She told me to pick a real major and a real school,” said Steele.
She enrolled at Indiana University of Pennsylvania instead but admits because she was not following her heart. As a student in 1988, she stated that she also experienced a great deal of racism from both white and black students as a biracial woman.
She details a frightening experience she faced during that time.
“It was hard to find my place. Dealing with white males chasing you in a truck, you’re not sure what they’re going to do. It was six of them in a pickup truck and from where I stopped at the intersection, they would rev the engine. And when I would take my foot of the curb to walk, they would gun and when I put my foot back on the curb, they would back up,” she said.
After this occurred several more times, she started running from them until the men got out the car and chased her into a wooden area to hide. Steele eventually withdrew from the university in 1990.
Steele would eventually return to Indiana University in 1995 to conquer her fears and adversities and to finish what she started. Before this, she attended the Art Institute of Pittsburg, where she earned her associates degree in photography.
With her book, “Jewels from the Delta”, Steele has two of her objectives.
“I hope it (the book) inspires other students and younger people to listen to their grandparents and get those stories out. I would do anything to hear my grandmother’s voice again,” said Steele.
She added: “I think people are thirsty, I know I’m thirsty for hearing some positive stories coming out of the Delta. We are more than poor blacks with a lack of education, that whole stereotype that’s out there. We are more than the blues,” she added.
“I was very intrigued by her presentation,” said Jeremy Anderson, a sophomore mass communications from Baton Rouge, La. “She almost made me feel a little guilty for not asking my grandparents about stories or recording their voices. Her book looks very interesting and I plan on reading it.”
Steele currently teaches photojournalism, layout and design, multimedia and journalism writing at the University of Mississippi. She was picture editor and part of the Dallas Morning News team that won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of Hurricane Katrina.
“Delta Jewels” hit bookstores nationwide on April 7, 2015.
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