About the Event
Join
us for the 2024 Lillian Smith Book Awards Ceremony, which will be held
on October 3rd, 2024, at 7 p.m. ET in the Decatur Library Auditorium.
This free event includes remarks from both recipients and a Q&A
followed by a book signing. The Lillian Smith Book Awards are sponsored
by the Southern Regional Council, University of Georgia Libraries,
DeKalb County Public Library/The Georgia Center for the Book, and
Piedmont College. This event is free and open to the public, but
registration is requested.
The LSBA committee is proud to award the 2024 Lillian Smith Book Award to:
SUSAN CRAWFORD for
Charleston: Race, Water, and The Coming Storm
and
VICTOR LUCKERSON for Built From the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street
About the Winners:
“In their books, Susan Crawford and Victor Luckerson illustrate not
only past actions of racial injustice but also the generational impacts
that continue to shape the communities of Charleston and Tulsa,” said
Katherine Stein, interim associate university librarian for special
collections and director of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript
Library, which administers the award. “We look forward to recognizing
these exceptional storytellers at the 2024 Lillian Smith Book Awards
ceremony in October.”
In Charleston, Susan Crawford, a law professor, author, and
technology expert, weaves together science, historical narratives, and
personal stories of Black Charlestonians in her case study at the
intersection of climate change and racial injustice in the coastal South
Carolina city. The book grapples with the historical and present-day
abuses of power that have shaped Charleston and offers a vision for a
more equitable and resilient future, emphasizing the need for immediate,
inclusive planning and climate justice.
Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor at Harvard Law
School. She served as Special Assistant to the President for Science,
Technology, and Innovation Policy in 2009 and co-led the FCC transition
between the Bush and Obama administrations. Her accolades include being
named one of Politico’s 50 Thinkers, Doers, and Visionaries
Transforming Politics in 2015, one of Fast Company’s Most Influential
Women in Technology in 2009, and one of TIME Magazine’s Tech 40: The Most Influential Minds in Tech in 2013.
In Built from the Fire, Victor Luckerson delves into the
legacy of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, which continues to impact the
city’s Black community more than a century later. The book traces the
history of the Greenwood community from a beacon of Black
entrepreneurial success during the Jim Crow era through the violent
massacre, which began with a false accusation against a Black teenager
and led to the destruction of more than 1,200 homes and nearly every
business in Greenwood, and into the present day. Prominent figures like
Loula Williams, a successful businesswoman, and the Goodwin family,
whose descendants continue to play a significant role in Greenwood, are
central to Luckerson’s narrative. The book documents Greenwood’s history
post-massacre, emphasizing the persistent challenges of white
supremacy, class stratification, and governmental neglect.
Luckerson, a journalist from Montgomery, Alabama, is the University
of Tulsa’s writer in residence for 2023-2024. In addition to sharing his
research and insights with students on campus, Luckerson is
collaborating with the College of Law’s Buck Colbert Franklin Legal
Clinic to investigate lawsuits filed by Greenwood property owners in the
aftermath of the massacre. He has written for esteemed publications
such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, TIME Magazine, and Smithsonian magazine.
About the Award:
The Southern Regional Council established the Lillian Smith Award
shortly after Smith's death in 1966. Internationally acclaimed author of
the controversial novel, Strange Fruit (1944), Lillian Smith was the
most liberal and outspoken of white, mid-twentieth century Southern
writers on issues of social and racial injustice. When other Southern
liberals were charting a cautious course on racial change, Smith boldly
and persistently called for an end to segregation. For such boldness,
she was often scorned by more moderate southerners, threatened by
arsonists, and denied the critical attention she deserved as a writer.
Yet she continued to write and speak for improved human relations and
social justice throughout her life.
Selected by a panel of judges, nominated books represent outstanding
creative achievements worthy of recognition because of their literary
merit, moral vision, and honest representation of the South, its people,
problems, and promises. The Lillian Smith Book Awards honors those
authors who, through their writing, carry on Smith's legacy of
elucidating the condition of racial and social inequity and proposing a
vision of justice and human understanding that represents the ideals of a
racially just society.
The 2024 winners will receive a specially-designed, glass trophy
bearing the embossed Lillian Smith Book Award logo. The award was
designed by Nate Nardi of Decatur Glassblowing, and the logo was
designed by Jerri Wilson of the DeKalb County Public Library.
Learn more about the award here: https://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/lillian-smith
