Chris Harris, Electronic Media Communication professor, has had three of his early photographs of impoverished blacks from the sugarcane fields of Louisiana selected for use in a new film on internationally noted author, poet and activist Alice Walker.
Alice Walker writing in her home in Jackson, Miss. 1977
Harris’ photographs come from a collection that Walker kept in her files for more than 30 years. They were discovered while doing research for the film. A photograph Harris shot of the author writing in her Jackson, Miss., home in 1977 was also chosen. The film, Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth, premiered nationwide during the summer of 2013.
Walker’s work includes seven novels, four short-story collections and four children’s books, as well as volumes of essays and poetry. Walker was the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in fiction – as well as the National Book Award – for her 1983 novel The Color Purple. That novel was the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation in 1985. TLE
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- An elderly gentleman on Hardtimes Plantation waits for a ride to his church wearing his Sunday best. 1969
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- A boy on Hardtimes Plantation, near Thibodaux, La. Rides, his bike in front of his home. 1969
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- Christmas Day on Hardtimes Plantation. The girl holds her Christmas orange, her only gift, while her father sits on the cabin steps. 1969
The Leading Edge 
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