More about the collection and the woman behind it.
Who was Lillian Smith?
Lillian Smith (1897–1966) was a white writer from the Jim Crow South who argued, loudly and early, that segregation was wrong and that racism hurt white Southerners too. She ran a girls' summer camp in the north Georgia mountains and a magazine pushing for an integrated South, and she published Black and white writers in the same pages at a time when that alone could get you threatened. She corresponded with people like Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, and Pauli Murray, and later helped nurture young activists in SNCC and CORE.
What is An Inconvenient Woman about?
It's a biography of Smith by historian (and friend) Keri Leigh Merritt, drawing on previously unpublished archival research to tell the full story of her life and activism, including her relationship with her longtime partner, Paula. The full title is An Inconvenient Woman: The Extraordinary Life of Lillian Smith, the Southerner Who Defied Jim Crow America.
What was Strange Fruit?
Smith's 1944 novel. It became a bestseller and a national sensation, and it was banned in Boston and Detroit. Smith paid a real price for her work: the FBI opened a file on her, she received death threats, and her house caught fire three times (twice on purpose), destroying manuscripts and letters she never got back.
Is this an official partnership?
Yes. We worked directly with Keri Leigh Merritt on this collection.
Who's this for?
If you've read the book, or you're into civil rights history that mostly doesn't get taught, this is for you.
