Southern Cultures

Abstract:

In 1973, court-ordered “desegregation” of the Claiborne County public schools had caused a near total abandonment of the schools by the local white minority population. The author/photographer arrived with her family, took up residence at Alcorn State University, where her husband had been hired to teach, and enrolled her children in the public schools. Soon, she began using her camera and her organizing talents to join the community in envisioning ways to live, work, and educate. She photographed the myriad expressions of Black culture she found in the lives of her daughters and their classmates. Later, she founded a local arts organization, Mississippi Cultural Crossroads, to encourage expressions of that culture that had been neglected or mistakenly denigrated, and to reflect it back to the larger community.