Eighty Books Nominated for Lillian Smith Book Awards for 2023

 

The Southern Regional Council (SRC) recently announced that eighty books have been nominated for the Lillian Smith Book Awards for 2023 to be presented at the Georgia Center for the Book on September 21, 2023.

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 2022 were Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance by Mia Bay and  My Monticello  by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson.

The 2023 nominated books are:

 

Title	Author	Publisher
Admissions: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School	Kendra James	Grand Central Publishing
Afternoons with Harper Lee	Wayne Flint	University of Georgia Press
Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place	Neema Avashia	West Virginia University Press
Arc of Truth: The Thinking of Martin Luther King Jr.	Lewis V. Baldwin	Fortress Press
Behind the Big House: Reconciling Slavery, Race, and Heritage in the US South	Jodi Skipper	University of Iowa Press
Bertha Maxwell-Roddey and the Power of Black Leadership	Sonya Y. Ramsey	University Press of Florida
Beyond Innocence: The Life Sentence of Darryl Hunt	Phoebe Zerwick	Grove Atlantic
Black in White Space: The Enduring Impact of Color in Everyday Life	Elijah Anderson	The University of Chicago Press
Black Side of the River: Race, Language, and Belonging in Washington, DC	Jessi Grieser	Georgetown University Press
Black Swim	Nicholas Goodly	Copper Canyon Press
Blacks and Jews in America	Terrence L. Johnson and Jacques Berlinerblau	Georgetown University Press
Bodies Out of Place: Theorizing Anti-Blackness in US Society	Barbara Harris Combs	University of Georgia Press
Boy We Made: A Memoir	Taylor Harris	Catapult
Breath Better Spent: Living Black Girlhood	DaMaris B. Hill	Bloosmbury US
Brother Sleep	Aldo Amparan	Alice James Books
Child: A Memoir	Judy Goldman	University of South Carolina Press
Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality	Tomiko Brown-Nagin	Pantheon Books
Civil War By Other Means: America's Long and Unfinished Right for Democracy	Jeremi Suri	PublicAffairs
Combating Hate: A Framework for Direct Action	Billie Murray	Penn State University Press
Crisis Vision: Race and the Cultural Production of Surveillance	Torin Monahan	Duke University Press
Diaries of a Terrorist	Christopher Soto	Copper Canyon Press
Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America	Psyche A. Williams-Forson	University of North Carolina Press
Education of Betsey Stockton: An Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom	Gregory Nobles	The University of Chicago Press
Enslaved: The Sunken History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade	Simcha Jacobovici and Sean Kingsley	Pegasus Books
Fear of Black Consciousness	Lewis R. Gordon	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Formidable: American Women and the Fight for Equality	Elisabeth Griffith	Pegasus Books
Free	Lauren Kessler	Sourcebooks
Free Joan Little: The Politics of Race, Sexual Violence, and Imprisonment	Christina Greene	University of North Carolina Press
Freedom Inside? Yoga and Meditation in the Carceral State	Farah Godrej	Oxford University Press
Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power	Jefferson Cowie	Basic Books
Hated Cage: An American Tragedy in Britain's Most Terrifying Prison	Nicholas Guyatt	Basic Books
High Price of Freeways	Judy Juanita	Livingston Press
How To Survive an Apocalypse: Poems	Jacqueline Trimble	University of Georgia Press
I Kissed Shara Wheeler	Casey McQuiston	St. Martin's Press
Kingdoms of Savannah	George Dawes Green	Celadon Books
Last Summer on State Street	Tonya Wolfe	William Morrow
Legacy of Slavery at Harvard	The Presidential Committee on the Legacy of Slavery	Harvard University Press
Legacy of Violence	Caroline Elkins	Alfred A. Knopf
Letters to Martin	Randal Jelks	Chicago Review Press
Lynching in Port Jervis	Philip Dray	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
McMullen Circle	Heather Newton	Regal House Publishing
Mother Country	Jacinda Townsend	Graywolf Press
My Faith in the Constitution is Whole: Barbara Jordan and the Politics of Scripture	Robin L. Owens	Georgetown University Press
My Seven Black Fathers	Will Jawando	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
No Choice: The Destruction of Roe v. Wade and the Fight to Protect a Fundamental American Right	Becca Andrews	PublicAffairs
No Equal Justice	Peter J. Hammer and Edward J. Littlejohn	Wayne State University Press
None But the Righteous	Chantal James	Counterpoint
O.N. Pruitt's Possum Town: Photographing Trouble and Resilience in the American South	Berkley Hudson	University of North Carolina Press
On Account of Sex: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Making of Gender Equality Law	Philippa Strum	University of Kansas
People's Plaza: Sixty-Two Days of Nonviolent Resistance	Justin Jones	Vanderbilt University Press
Postcard from the Delta	Michael Gaspeny	Livingston Press
Power: The Rise of Black Women in America	Charity C. Elder	Skyhorse Publishing
Praesidium - Shadows in the Wind Book 1	McKinley Aspen	Muse Literary
Real Americans: National Identity, Violence, and the Constitution	Jared A. Goldstein	University of Kansas
Reclaiming Two-Spirits: Sexuality, Spiritual Renewal & Sovereignty in Native America	Gregory Smithers	Beacon Press
Redemptive Path Forward: From Incarceration to a Life of Activism	Antong Lucky	Counterpoint
Requiem for the Massacre: A Black History on the Conflict, Hope, and Fallout of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre	RJ Young	Counterpoint
Resident Strangers: Immigrant Laborers in New South Alabama	Jennifer E. Brooks	LSU Press
Revolution by Law: The Federal Government and the Desegregation of Alabama Schools	Brian K. Landsberg	University of Kansas
Revolutionary: Samuel Adams	Stacy Schiff	Little, Brown and Company
Selena Didn't Know Spanish Either	Marisa Tirado	Texas Review Press
Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls	Kathleen Hale	Grove Atlantic
Smoking the Bible	Chris Abani	Copper Canyon Press
Solito: A Memoir	Javier Zamora	Hogarth (Random House)
Southern Beauty: Race, Ritual, and Memory in the Modern South	Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd	University of Georgia Press
Southernization of America	Frye Gaillard and Cynthia Tucker	NewSouth Books
Struggling to Learn: An Intimate History of School Desegregation in South Carolina	June Manning Thomas	University of South Carolina Press
Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century	Peniel E. Joseph	Basic Books
Trayvon Generation	Elizabeth Alexander	Grand Central Publishing
True Biz	Sara Novic	Penguin Random House
Under the Skin	Linda Villarosa	Penguin Random House
Unsettled Land: From Revolution to Republic, the Struggle for Texas	Sam W. Haynes	Basic Books
Voice in the Wilderness: A pioneering Biologist Explains How Evolution Can Help Us Solve our Biggest Problems	Joseph L. Graves	Basic Books
Walking Gentry Home: A Memoir of My Foremothers in Verse	Alora Young	Hogarth (Random House)
We Borrowed Gentleness	J. Estanislao Lopez	Alice James Books
What the Children Told Us	Tim Spofford	Sourcebooks
What The Eyes Can't See	Margaret Edds	University of South Carolina Press
Which Side Are You On	Ryan Lee Wong	Catapult
White Mosque	Sofia Samatar	Catapult
Yellow Dog Blues	Alice Faye Duncan	Eerdmans Books for Young Readers

Presenting the Jurors for the 2023 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.

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