Fifty-Nine Books Nominated for 2022 Lillian Smith Book Awards

The Southern Regional Council (SRC) recently announced that fifty-nine books have been nominated for the Lillian Smith Book Awards for 2022 to be presented in a Zoom webinar on September 29, 2022. 

SRC was founded in 1919 to combat racial injustice in the South. SRC initiated the Lillian Smith Book Awards shortly after the death in 1966 of noted Southern author Lillian Smith 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 2021 were From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century by William A. Darity, Jr. and On Account of Race: The Supreme Court, White Supremacy, and the Ravaging of African-American Voting Rights by Lawrence Goldstone. The 2022 nominated books are: 

TITLE; AUTHOR; PUBLISHER 

Aesthetics of Solidarity; Flores, Nichole; Georgetown University Press 

Audacious Agitation; Willis, Vincint; University of Georgia Press 

Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence; Hill, Anita; Viking 

Better Life for Their Children; Feiler, Andrew; University of Georgia Press 

Between Freedom and Equality; Torrey, Barbara Boyle and Clara Myrick Green; Georgetown University Press 

Bird Uncaged; Peterson, Marlon; Bold Type Books 

Black Fundamentalists: Conservative Christianity and Racial Identity in the Segregation Era; Bare, Daniel; New York University Press 

BUSES ARE A COMIN'; Person, Charles and Richard Rooker; St. Martin's Press 

Chasing Me to My Grave; Rembert, Winfred, as told to Erin I. Kelly; Bloomsbury Publishing 

Children of the Dust; Barton, Marlin; Regal House Publishing 

Children Under Fire; Cox, John Woodrow; HarperCollins (Ecco) 

Chronicling Stankonia; Bradley, Regina; University of North Carolina Press 

Citizenship Education Program and Black Women's Political Culture; Gillespie, Deanna; University Press of Florida 

Confession of Copeland Cane; Norris, Keenan; Unnamed Press 

Dear Miss Metropolitan: A Novel; Ferrell, Carolyn; Henry Holt & Co. 

End of Asylum; Ramji-Nogales, Jaya, Andrew Schoenholtz, Philip Schrag; Georgetown University Press 

Facing the Mountain; Brown, Daniel James; Viking Father James Page; Rivers, Larry Eugene; John Hopkins University Press 

Fear of a Black Universe; Alexander, Stephon; Basic Books 

Frank Porter Graham; Link, William A.; University of North Carolina Press 

Fugitive Pedagogy; Givens, Jarvis R.; Harvard University Press 

Getting Something to Eat in Jackson: Race, Class, and Food in the American South; Fwoodzie, Joseph C. ; Princeton University Press 

Give My Love to the Savages; Stuck, Chris; Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 

Ground Breaking; Ellsworth, Scott; Dutton, Penguin Random House Gunfight; Busse, Ryan; PublicAffairs 

Heritage and Hate: Old South Rhetoric at Southern Universities; Monroe, Stephen; University of Alabama Press 

Hot Hot Chicken: A Nashville Story; Martin, Rachel Louise; Vanderbilt University Press 

Justice Deferred; Burton, Orville Vernon and Armand Derfner; Harvard University Press 

Justice Rising; Sullivan, Patricia; Harvard University Press 

Kin: A Memoir; Rodenberg, Shawna Kay; Bloomsbury Publishing 

Kindest Lie; Johnson, Nancy; William Morrow an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 

Last Days; Beyer, Tamiko; Alice James Books 

Ledger and the Chain; Rothman, Joshua; Basic Books 

Love and Other Poems; Dimitrov, Alex; Copper Canyon Press 

Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois; Jeffers, Honorée Fanonne; Harper 

Make Good the Promises; Conwill, Kinshasha Holman and Paul Gardullo; Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 

Making Monsters; Smith, David Livingstone; Harvard University Press 

Monumental Harm: Reckoning with Jim Crow Era Confederate Monuments; Hartley, Roger; University of South Carolina Press 

Murder at the Mission; Harden, Blaine; Viking 

My Monticello: Fiction; Johnson, Jocelyn Nicole; Henry Holt & Co. 

My Remarkable Journey; Johnson, Katherine; Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 

No Common Ground; Cox, Karen; University of North Carolina Press 

Perfect Black; Wilkinson, Crystal; University Press of Kentucky 

Point of Reckoning; Segal, Theodore; Duke University Press 

Prophets; Jones, Robert; Putnam 

Right Here, Right Now: Life Stories from America's Death Row; Harris, Lynden; Duke University Press 

Rinehart Frames; Mphanza, Cheswayo; University of Nebraska Press 

ROBERT E LEE AND ME; Seidule, Ty; St. Martin's Press 

Rule of Law in the United States: An Unfinished Project of Black Liberation; Gowder, Paul; Bloomsbury Publishing 

Second; Anderson, Carol; Bloomsbury Publishing 

Seen/Unseen: Hidden Lives in a Community of Enslaved Georgians; Lawton, Christopher, Laura Nelson, Randy Reid; University of Georgia Press 

State Must Provide; Harris, Adam; HarperCollins (Ecco) 

To Love an Island; Brimmer, Ana Portnoy; YesYes Books 

Traveling Black; Bay, Mia; Harvard University Press 

Water I Won't Touch; Candrilli, Kayleb Rae; Copper Canyon Press 

Waterbaby; Wallschlaeger, Nikki; Copper Canyon Press 

We Are Each Other's Harvest; Baszile, Natalie 

West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire; Waite, Kevin; University of North Carolina Press 

White Liberal College President in the Jim Crow South; Godwin, Sandra; Mercer University Press

Presenting the Jurors for the 2022 Lillian Smith Book Awards

The Southern Regional Council (SRC), founded in 1919 to combat racial injustice, established the Lillian Smith Book Awards in 1966 to recognize writing which extends the legacy of the outspoken writer who challenged 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. Since 2007 this partnership has also included Georgia Center for the Book. Since 2016, this partnership has included Piedmont College, which operates the Lillian Smith Center in Clayton, Georgia. Excerpts from recent awards ceremonies may be viewed through by clicking on the images on the right side of this page.

This year’s Lillian Smith jury is again chaired by Mary A. Twining, Emeritus Professor of English and Folklore at Clark Atlanta University.  Noted for her study of the Sea Island Communities of Georgia and South Carolina and their cultural ties to West African, her published work has included Sea Island Roots: African Presence in the Carolinas and Georgia, edited with Keith E. Baird (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press 1991); Names and Naming in the Sea Islands, a contribution to the Crucible of Carolina: Essays in the Development of Gullah Language and Culture, edited by Michael Montgomery and Louise Ferrell, University of Georgia Press, 1994; The New Nomads, Art, Life, and Lure of Migrant workers in New York State, published in The Journal of the New York Folklore Society 1987; and numerous contributions to the Journal of Black Studies.

Joining the jury again this year is Minion K. C. Morrison, Professor of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Delaware. Having previously served as Head of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Mississippi State University, Morrison's research and publications have appeared in the fields of comparative and American politics and administration.  His publications include several books: African Americans and Political Participation (2003); Black Political Mobilization, Leadership and Power (1987); Housing and Urban Poor in Africa (1982), edited with Peter Gutkind; and Ethnicity and Political Integration (1982). He received a Lillian Smith Book Award in 2016 for his book Aaron Henry of Mississippi: Inside Agitator.

Melvin N. Johnson previously served as President and Professor of Economics at  Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tennessee. He previously served as Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Winston-Salem State University; Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, CIO, Interim Dean and Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Business Administration at  North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University; Special Lecturer on Business and Economic Policy at the University of Maryland; and  Assistant Professor of Economics at the United States Air Force Academy.

James Taylor has managed the Atlanta Fulton Public Library’s Buckhead Branch and hosted the System’s Writers in Focus, “a meet-the-author” television show produced by Fulton County Television (FGTV) .  He previously managed the Library Express Department, the Circulation Department, and the Ivan Allen Reference Department.

Also rejoining the jury this year is Merryl Penson, Executive Director of Library Services for the Georgia Board of Regents.