Atlanta - Two exceptional books will be recognized with this year's Lillian Smith Book Awards. These awards were established in 1968 by the Southern Regional Council (SRC) to recognize authors whose books represent outstanding achievements demonstrating through literary merit and moral vision an honest representation of the South, its people, its problems, and its promise.
This year's Forty-fifth Anniversary Awards Ceremony is a partnership between the Southern Regional Council, the University of Georgia Libraries, and the Georgia Center for the Book. It will be presented in connection with the Decatur Book Festival at the DeKalb County Public Library in Decatur, Georgia on Sunday, September 1, 2013 at 2:30 p.m.
The 2013 Award Recipients are:
A Biography
In this biography of Benjamin Mays
(1894-1984), Randal Maurice Jelks chronicles the life of the man Martin
Luther King Jr. called his "spiritual and intellectual father."
Dean of the Howard University School of Religion, president of
Morehouse College, and mentor to influential black leaders, Mays had a
profound impact on the education of the leadership of the black church
and of a generation of activists, policymakers, and educators. Jelks
argues that Mays's ability to connect the message of Christianity with
the responsibility to challenge injustice prepared the black church for
its pivotal role in the civil rights movement.
From Mays's
humble origins in Epworth, South Carolina, through his doctoral
education, his work with institutions such as the National Urban League,
the NAACP, and the national YMCA movement, and his significant career
in academia, Jelks creates a rich portrait of the man, the teacher, and
the scholar. Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement is a powerful portrayal of one man’s faith, thought, and mentorship in bringing American apartheid to an end.
Crossroads at Clarksdale: The Black Freedom Struggle in the Mississippi Delta after World War II
Weaving national narratives from stories of the daily
lives and familiar places of local residents, Françoise Hamlin
chronicles the slow struggle for black freedom through the history of
Clarksdale, Mississippi. Hamlin paints a full picture of the
town over fifty years, recognizing the accomplishments of its diverse
African American community and strong NAACP branch, and examining the
extreme brutality of entrenched power there. The Clarksdale story defies
triumphant narratives of dramatic change, and presents instead a
layered, contentious, untidy, and often disappointingly unresolved civil
rights movement.
Following the black freedom struggle in
Clarksdale from World War II through the first decade of the
twenty-first century allows Hamlin to tell multiple, interwoven stories
about the town's people, their choices, and the extent of political
change. She shows how members of civil rights organizations--especially
local leaders Vera Pigee and Aaron Henry--worked to challenge Jim Crow
through fights against inequality, police brutality, segregation, and,
later, economic injustice. With Clarksdale still at a crossroads today,
Hamlin explores how to evaluate success when poverty and inequality
persist.
Join us for the 2013 Lillian Smith Book Awards Ceremony
During the Decatur Book Festival
September 1, 2013
September 1, 2013
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