A 2018 WKU alumna and photojournalist Brittany Greeson joined a team of four other young journalists during the fall of 2017 in an effort to explore the issues that divide us and the stories that can bring us together for “Crossing the Divide,” an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. The half-hour documentary, which will air on PBS World Channel on September 24th, follows the team as they cross the country documenting the daily lives of average Americans.
“We reported on the idea of divisions in America” said Greeson. “We tried to find topics within that theme in each region.” Greeson, who had worked with GroundTruth in the past, led the Kentucky reporting.
“I don’t believe in the term giving a voice to the voiceless” said Greeson. “I think people already have voices, I think it’s just our job to amplify them.”
Below are a few of Greeson’s photographs from the project:
Thomas Morgan, 32, steadily lifts swaths of tobacco to be hung to dry at the Robinson Center for Appalachian Resource Sustainability in Quicksand, Kentucky, on Monday, September 27, 2017. | Brittany Greeson
Layers of rock are seen towering above a busy highway just outside of Pikeville, Kentucky, on Saturday, September, 29, 2017. | Brittany Greeson
Lizzie Jones, 17, proudly wears her father’s employee of the month jacket from his time working at the coal mines nearby a shelf of her family’s relics of the coal industry at her home in Eastern Kentucky, on Sunday, September 24, 2017. Jones’ father passed away from black lung in 2014. In January of 2017 her mother, who also worked in the coal mining industry, passed away. Jones said she has plans on moving into the home they once shared and has developed a complex relationship with the coal. | Brittany Greeson
Crossing the Divide will air on PBS World Channel on September 24th.
Greeson’s work can be found at https://www.brittanygreeson.com