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
