From Dreaming to Becoming: How Piney Woods Shaped a Storyteller

Sallomé Hralima Class of ’97

When Sallomé Hralima first passed through the gates of The Piney Woods School, it felt like stepping into a world she had already imagined.

Inspired by cultural touchstones like A Different World and School Daze, she arrived with a vision of what Black excellence and community could look like. But what she found at Piney Woods was something even more powerful—something real.

Drawn to the school after seeing it featured on 60 Minutes, Sallomé made the journey from California to Mississippi, stepping into a space that would ultimately shape her identity, her perspective, and her purpose.

At Piney Woods, she encountered the richness of the African Diaspora in a way she had never experienced before. Surrounded by peers from Eritrea, the Caribbean, Alaska, and across the United States, she began to understand both the diversity and unity of Black identity.

“We sounded different. We dressed differently,” she reflects—yet within those differences, she discovered connection, growth, and a deeper sense of belonging.

It was also here that her creative journey quietly began.

At just 16, Sallomé picked up a JVC VHS camcorder—not for an assignment, but out of curiosity and intention. She began documenting her peers, asking simple questions: their name, their grade, where they were from. What she was really capturing, though, was something much larger—the stories, identities, and brilliance of a generation.

Without realizing it, she was laying the foundation for her future.

Today, Sallomé Hralima is a Brooklyn-based writer, producer, and memory worker whose films explore coming-of-age, identity, and cultural storytelling. Her work—including But Tomorrow, Through the Wire, Wylin’, and L-O-V-E—centers the complexity and beauty of Black life and experience. She is currently co-producing Yearning: The Love Letters of bell hooks, supported by the Mellon and Ford Foundations.

Yet, the throughline remains Piney Woods.

The lessons she gained—about identity, belonging, and perspective—continue to shape her creative voice. Her work often returns to themes first explored during her time on campus: adolescence, cultural identity, and the tension between tradition and transformation.

“Piney Woods didn’t just educate me,” she reflects. “It rooted me in Black soil, rich with possibility.”

At Piney Woods, we believe in developing the whole person—Head, Heart, and Hands. Sallomé’s journey is a powerful reflection of that mission in action.

Her story reminds us that when students are given space to explore, to question, and to create, they don’t just discover their path—they define it.