Phyllis Alesia Perry (born 1961, in Atlanta, Georgia) is a journalist and author. An African-American, she lives in the Southern United States. Phyllis Alesia Perry is the daughter of Harmon Griggs Perry, the first African American reporter to be hired by the Atlanta Journal. She grew up in Tuskegee, Alabama and graduated with a degree in communications from the University of Alabama in 1982. Becoming a journalist, she was among a group of Alabama Journal reporters who won the Pulitzer Prize for investigating Alabama's high infant mortality rate.