Forty-Six Books Nominated for Lillian Smith Book Award for 2021

The Southern Regional Council (SRC) recently announced that forty six books have been nominated for the Lillian Smith Book Awards for 2021 to be presented in a Zoom webinar on September 5, 2021.

SRC was founded in 1919 to combat racial injustice in the South. SRC initiated the Lillian Smith Book Awards shortly after Smith's death in 1966 to recognize authors whose writing extends the legacy of the outspoken writer, educator and social critic who challenged her fellow Southerners and all Americans on issues of social and racial justice. Since 2004 the awards have been presented by SRC in a partnership with the University of Georgia Libraries, whose Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library houses a historic collection of Lillian Smith's letters and manuscripts. The Georgia Center for the Book became a partner in 2007, when the awards ceremony first became part of the Decatur Book Festival.  Piedmont College, which operates the Lillian Smith Center, became a partner in 2015.

The award recipients for 2020 were Shelter in a Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism by Jelani M. Favors and  John Hervey Wheeler, Black Banking and the Economic Struggle for Civil Rights  by Brandon Winford.

The 2021 nominated books are:

  

Title	Author	Publisher
13th Balloon	Mark Bibbins	Copper Canyon Press
Administration of Lunacy	Mab Segrest	New Press
Adverse Events: Race, Inequality, and the Testing of New Pharmaceuticals	Jill A. Fisher	New York University Press
Arrow	Sumita Chakraborty	Alice James Books
Call My Name, Clemson: Documenting the Black Experience in an American University Community	Rhondda Robinson Thomas	University of Iowa Press
Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom	Eddie R. Cole	Princeton University Press
Cardinal	Tyree Daye	Copper Canyon Press
Church in Color	Montague Williams	Baylor University Press
Civil Wars, Civil Beings, and Civil Rights in Alabama's Black Belt	Bertis D. English	The University of Alabama Press
Culture Warlords	Talia Lavin	Hachette Books
Cumberland Island	Stephen Doster	UGA Press
Cut in Stone	Ryan Newson	Baylor University Press
Damaged Heritage	J. Chester Johnson	Pegasus Books
Deluge	Leila Chatti	Copper Canyon Press
Down Along with That Devil's Bones	Connor Towne O'Neill	Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
End of White Politics	Zerlina Maxwell	Hachette Books
Fragile Democracy	Leloudis & Korstad	University of North Carolina Press
From Here to Equality	Darity & Mullen	University of North Carolina Press
From My Mother's Back	Njoki Wane	Wolsak and Wynn
Genus Americanus	Loren Ghiglione	UGA Press
Gone but not Forgotten	Wendy Venet	UGA Press
Goodbye, My Tribe: An Evangelical Exodus	Vic Sizemore	The University of Alabama Press
Hope For Justice and Power	Kathleen Staudt	UNT Press
Hot with the Bad Things	Lucia LoTempio	Alice James Books
Hush: a fiction	Carlos Dews	Negative Capability Press
Inheritance	Taylor Johnson	Alice James Books
Just Us: An American Conversation	Claudia Rankine	Graywolf Press
Live As If	Frye Gaillard	Negative Capability Press
Me and White Supremacy	Layla F. Saad	Sourcebooks
Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir	Natasha Trethewey	Ecco/HarperCollins
Nail the Evening Hangs On	Monica Sok	Copper Canyon Press
No Voice Too Small	Lindsay Metcalf	Charlesbridge Publishing
Not Go Away Is My Name	Alberto Ríos	Copper Canyon Press
On Account of Race	Lawrence Goldstone	Counterpoint Press
Overshot	Susan Falls & Jessica Smith	University of Georgia Press
Pittsburgh and the Urban League Movement: A Century of Social Service and Activism	Joe William Trotter Jr.	University Press of Kentucky
Radical Ambivalence: Race in Flannery O'Connor	Angela Alaimo O'Donnell	Fordham University Press
Salt Body Shimmer	Aricka Foreman	YesYes Books
Scholar and the Struggle	David A. Varel	University of North Carolina Press
Shrapnel Maps	Philip Metres	Copper Canyon Press
Southern Hyperboles: Metafigurative Strategies of Narration	Michał Choiński	LSU Press
Spencer Haywood Rule	Marc J. Spears and Gary Washburn	Triumph Books
The Names of All the Flowers	Melissa Valentine	Feminist Press
The Voice of Sheila Chandra	Kazim Ali	Alice James Books
Wandering Dixie: Dispatches from the Lost Jewish South	Sue Eisenfeld	Ohio State University Press/Mad Creek Books
You're the Only One I've Told	Meera Shah	Chicago Review Press