Dr. Ophera A. Davis was born in the Mississippi Delta. Her father took the family to the Mississippi Gulf Coast for vacations because her mother loved the palm trees and beautiful oceanfront. When Dr. Davis heard that Hurricane Katrina had decimated the Gulf of Mexico, she had her beloved Mississippi Coastline in mind.
Her book project started shortly after Hurricane Katrina and brings the experiences of a group of Mississippi Black women Hurricane Katrina survivors front and center. The women’s narratives of resilience and recovery over a 15-year period is grounded in their cultural orientation. Moreover, her work contributes to the disaster canon by adding the voices and experiences of a missing group because there are no books in the United States on Black women disaster survivors. She attended an HBCU – Jackson State University in Mississippi. For over 20 years Dr. Davis has taught courses at colleges in Boston and Virginia.