Alysia Burton Steele: Completing History

Alysia Burton Steele is a photojournalist and assistant professor at the Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media. Her 2015 book, Delta Jewels, chronicles the lives of over 50 Mississippi Delta women – church elders, including civil rights activist Mrs. Myrlie Evers – who have shared poignant highlights of their lives during the Jim Crow era. To complete the book, Steele drove over 6,000 miles and collected oral histories from women in 27 Mississippi Delta towns, discovering first-person accounts that had historical significance themselves.