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2020 Lillian Smith Book Awards: Jelani M. Favors and Brandon K. Winford

Event date: 
Sunday, September 6, 2020 - 2:00pm to 3:00pm

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, and are presented annually at the Decatur Book Festival. Charis is proud to be the bookseller for this event. Click here to register.

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 2020 winners will receive a specially-designed, glass trophy bearing the new, embossed Lillian Smith Book Award logo. The award was designed by Nate Nardi of Decatur Glassblowing, and the new logo was designed by Jerri Wilson of the DeKalb County Public Library. 

The 2020 Lillian Smith Book Award winners are:

Jelani M. Favors, author of Shelter in a Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism, published by the University of North Carolina Press.

Brandon K. Winford, John Hervey Wheeler, Black Banking, and the Economic Struggle for Civil Rights, published by the University Press of Kentucky. 

 

Event address: 
online
Shelter in a Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism By Jelani M. Favors Cover Image
$30.80
ISBN: 9781469661445
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: University of North Carolina Press - August 1st, 2020

2020 Museum of African American History Stone Book Award
2020 Lillian Smith Book Award
Finalist, 2020 Pauli Murray Book Prize


John Hervey Wheeler, Black Banking, and the Economic Struggle for Civil Rights (Civil Rights and the Struggle for Black Equality in the Twen) By Brandon K. Winford Cover Image
$57.50
ISBN: 9780813178257
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: University Press of Kentucky - December 9th, 2019

WINNER OF THE LILLIAN SMITH BOOK AWARD


Event Summary: 
The Lillian Smith Book Awards honors authors who carry on Smith's legacy by fostering equality, justice, and understanding.