Product Description

Late in the summer of 2005 following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, a Vicksburg resident and noted photographer, Melody Golding, visited the Mississippi Gulf Coast as a Red Cross volunteer. Carrying supplies and a camera, Golding began keeping a photographic journal of the days after the storm. Golding felt that her images, representing a year-long chronicle of the aftermath, needed to be shared with the world beyond the coast.

Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember (University Press of Mississippi) provides uncommonly personal insights into the life on the Mississippi Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina. This book combines 86 of Golding's striking black-and-white photographs with more than 50 firsthand accounts of Mississippi women, members of the Mississippi State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, friends of the committee, and survivors of the storm.

Despite desperate circumstances but with great generosity of spirit, these witnesses to one of the greatest natural disasters in North American history recorded their experiences with a broad diversity of voices. Featured contributors include Ellen Gilchrist, whose residence in Ocean Springs suffered damage, and Mary Anderson Pickard, whose home Katrina destroyed.

In her foreword to this volume, Gladys Kemp Lisanby states her vision for the project. "We hope that this record of a difficult time in the history of our beloved state will serve a higher purpose to mold and shape the future of us, as well as those who follow along in years to come."

These thoughtful and touching accounts join with the photographs in telling a remarkable story of courage and endurance. Together they paint a mesmerizing picture of this unforgettable chapter in Mississippi history. Royalties from book sales will aid Mississippi State Committee artist members.

Melody Golding's photographs of the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Katrina have been shown in solo exhibitions at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., as Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember, at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, as Stark Exposures: Images of Katrina, and now as a national traveling exhibition sponsored in part by the Mississippi Humanities Council Her work is featured in numerous public and private collections and some of her Katrina photographs were included in the Royal Photographic Society Awards Journal in England. Sally Pfister is a longtime community volunteer who lived in Ocean Springs and was one of the founding directors of the Mississippi State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #356175 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 164 pages

From the Publisher
These haunting, first-hand accounts and photographs from the aftermath

---Feature true-life stories of Katrina and its aftermath from more than fifty Mississippi women

---Feature seventy striking black-and-white photographs of the coast and the first year of recovery

---Offer moving, personal tales of the storm that reveal the variety of experiences felt by those on the Mississippi Gulf Coast

---Create a book by and about the women of Mississippi

From the Author
The photographs in this book are the result of my journeys to the Mississippi Gulf Coast beginning shortly after Hurricane Katrina came ashore in August 2005 as a volunteer for the American Red Cross and continuing throughout the year until August 2006. They document from Pearlington, Ms to Pascagoula, Ms. They are my personal witness to the events of this sweeping and non-discriminating catastrophe. I am honored to have been a part of documenting this epic storm, and to have shared in my telling of it through the gifts which God has given me in my photography.

It is an incomplete visual recording of the entire Mississippi Gulf Coastline, all of which was very nearly wrung of life and hope after the storm. These images radically simplify what really happened. My goal in capturing them was to convey the essence of the hurricane's destruction. The grim subject matter has a nightmarish quality, yet also a strangely elegant observance as we attempt to visualize the experiences of the victims of the storm.

The words that accompany the photographs are from the extraordinary women of Mississippi who experienced profound loss due to the storm. They are personal and heartbreaking, yet some are incredibly uplifting with messages of hope. Hurricane Katrina is a painful reminder that nature does not always have mercy, no matter our circumstances or station in life, and that any one of us may be tested terribly at any moment by the times in which we live.

Melody Golding

From the Inside Flap
Haunting, firsthand accounts and photographs from the aftermath of the hurricane

Customer Reviews

Katrina women portrayed realistically
Ms. Pfister did a fabulous job of interviewing the female surviviors of Mississippi Gulf Coast's Hurricane Katrina and portraying the realities of that life-changing event. Ms. Golding spotlighted their struggles and triumphs in heart-rending photographs; she very aptly expressed in pictures these women's experiences which could not be expressed in words.

beautiful book
There are so many books out there on Katrina...this one grabbed my attention because it focuses on two groups often overlooked: women and areas of the Gulf Coast other than New Orleans. I had it on my Amazon wish list for months and I'm so glad I finally bought it. Beautiful black and white photography and touching stories from survivors. Wonderful effort to both archive memories and keep them alive.

Raw Emotion
This book is filled with raw emotions. This group of southern women show their strenth and courage as they tell us their first hand stories and experiences of living through Hurricane Katrina. As they tell in their stories, their nightmare didn't end when the storm passed - the story still continues to this day. The only difference is the emotions and attitudes sometimes change and the focus changes some. It is good to hear about all the different experiences and emotions - it helps to get a truer sense of things. I recommend this book. These women really are "Steel Magnolias" (if I could borrow that term.)