Women’s Lives of Courage

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 University. Her latest book is Delta Jewels: In Search of My Grandmother's Wisdom (Center Street). Inspired by memories of her beloved grandmother, photographer and author Alysia Burton Steele 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. 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.

Michele Weldon is an assistant professor emerita at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. A journalist for more than 35 years, her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, and others. She is a frequent guest on radio and TV, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, NPR, and CNN. She is the author of I Closed My Eyes: Revelations of a Battered Woman; Everyman News, and Writing to Save Your Life. In her latest book,  Escape Points: A Memoir (Chicago Review Press), Weldon provides an antidote to the harried single mom stereotype in this beguiling memoir of raising three sons alone in the face of cancer, an ambitious career, and the shadow of her ex-husband. Weldon describes facing her fears and failures honestly, guided by a belief in the power of staying calm, doing one’s best, and asking for help. She provides a graceful example of how a single mother, and her children, can succeed when others—neighbors, family, teachers, and in this case an incredible high school wrestling coach—step in to fill the void.