Delta Jewels In Search of My Grandmother's Wisdom

Inspired by memories of her beloved grandmother, photographer and author Alysia Burton Steele -- picture editor on a Pulitzer Prize-winning team -- combines heart-wrenching narrative with poignant photographs of more than 50 female church elders in the Mississippi Delta.

These ordinary women lived extraordinary lives under the harshest conditions of the Jim Crow era and during the courageous changes of the Civil Rights Movement. With the help of local pastors, Steele recorded these living witnesses to history and folk ways, and shares the significance of being a Black woman -- child, daughter, sister, wife, mother, and grandmother in Mississippi -- a Jewel of the Delta. From the stand Mrs. Tennie Self took for her marriage to be acknowledged in the phone book, to the life-threatening sacrifice required to vote for the first time, these 50 inspiring portraits are the faces of love and triumph that will teach readers faith and courage in difficult times.

Alysia Burton Steele won a 2006 Pulitzer Prize with the Dallas Morning News team, where she was picture editor. She is currently an assistant professor at the Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media. She holds an MA in photography from Ohio U. and was born in Harrisburg, PA.
Learn more: AlysiaBurton.com