NATCHEZ — Deja Harris learned about the various aspects of journalistic storytelling this summer using the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Summer as her medium.

The Cathedral School 11th-grade student was one of 16 students from across Mississippi that attended a high school journalism workshop at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Harris interviewed subjects, took photographs and created news packages while covering the Freedom Summer 1946 50th anniversary conference on the Hattiesburg campus.

Freedom Summer refers to a period in 1964 when hundreds of volunteers came to Mississippi to launch a massive voter registration drive for African Americans, who were facing voter registration obstacles at the time.

For Harris, the summer workshop offered her a chance to combine an interest in learning more about journalism with a topic she knew little about.

“A lot of the stuff about Freedom Summer isn’t in the history books we get at school, so it really helped expand our knowledge of what it was and how it impacted the state,” Harris said. “It let me learn everything about journalism, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a while.”

Harris said she’s always been interested in creative writing, but the conference exposed her to other facets, such as photography and videography, she might utilize later if she chooses journalism as a career.

“We would pretty much wake up and go cover the different parts of the conference each day,” Harris said. “We did everything from writing and compiling interviews, to shooting all the video, putting together radio packages and other things.”

Harris said one of her favorite subjects she interviewed at the conference was Peggy Jean Connor, who was heavily involved in the Civil Rights Movement at the time and served as executive secretary of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

“We got to hear all about her experiences and what really happened back in those times,” Harris said. “It opened our eyes to a lot.”

Harris said the other part of the conference she enjoyed was hearing from southern Mississippi photographer James Edward Bates, who spent several years documenting the Ku Klux Klan as a photographer.

“That was the one that impacted me the most emotionally, because he talked a lot about how with journalism you have to put up an emotional wall and not get close to your subjects,” Harris said. “I had never thought about that before.”

Harris said she plans to continue learning more about journalism during the remainder of her high school career, with the plan to study journalism and psychology in college.

“I really want to be a psychiatrist, but I love to write, too,” Harris said. “I’m not exactly sure yet.”

Deja is the daughter of Tammy and David Harris.