{"id":5514,"date":"2015-04-16T16:08:07","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T16:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/?p=5514"},"modified":"2015-04-16T16:08:07","modified_gmt":"2015-04-16T16:08:07","slug":"alysia-burton-steele-inspires-mass-comm-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/2015\/04\/16\/alysia-burton-steele-inspires-mass-comm-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Alysia Burton Steele inspires mass comm students"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Photo by William Kelly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mark Braboy
\n<\/strong>Associate Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist, author and professor, Alyssa Burton Steele is on a mission to tell the stories of women from the Mississippi Delta.<\/p>\n

Steele spoke to mass communications students on April 14 at the eCenter@JSU about her book, \u201cDelta Jewels\u201d, 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.<\/p>\n

Elayne Hayes-Anthony, director of the Jackson State University Mass Communications Department, said Steele\u2019s visit is a great opportunity for students to hear from a multi-talented media professional.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are so glad that Alysia Burton Steele has chosen to share her book with us at Jackson State,\u201d said Anthony.\u00a0 \u201cHer 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the memories of her grandmother close at heart, Steele spoke to students about how her relationship with her grandmother inspired the book.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started the book because I wasn\u2019t 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,\u201d said Steele.<\/p>\n

Steele added: \u201cI never asked my grandmother of her childhood. I was too busy butting heads with her and fighting over things that didn\u2019t matter and I wasn\u2019t asking her about her. And she passed away 20 years ago, so I couldn\u2019t pick up the phone and call her and be like, \u2018you are not going to believe what I\u2019m seeing in Mississippi.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to see beautiful, strong, dignified, black women from my grandmother\u2019s generation. These women are often overlooked and they\u2019re the ones who held it down. They\u2019re strong beautiful women who deserve to have these stories told,\u201d said Steele.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 The stories detail accounts of these women overcoming adversity, finding true love, and other themes that mirror many of the social problems seen today.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Dr. Elayne Hayes-Anthony speaks with Alysia Burton Steele. Photo by William Kelly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got scholarships to college, but my grandmother didn\u2019t let me go. She said how many black photographers do you know?\u00a0 She told me to pick a real major and a real school,\u201d said Steele.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

She details a frightening experience she faced during that time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard to find my place. Dealing with white males chasing you in a truck, you\u2019re not sure what they\u2019re 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

With her book, \u201cJewels from the Delta\u201d, Steele has two of her objectives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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\u2019s voice again,\u201d said Steele.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cI think people are thirsty, I know I\u2019m 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\u2019s out there. We are more than the blues,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very intrigued by her presentation,\u201d said Jeremy Anderson, a sophomore mass communications from Baton Rouge, La. \u201cShe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steele currently teaches photojournalism, layout and design, multimedia and journalism writing at the University of Mississippi.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cDelta Jewels\u201d hit bookstores nationwide on April 7, 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, \u201cDelta Jewels\u201d, a collection of portraits and first-hand accounts inspired by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-campus-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}