Confederate Sympathies analyzes the Civil War and its aftermath in the South by weaving histories of literature, politics, and sexuality. Its author, Andrew Donnelly, will be in conversation with Eva Payne at Novel in Memphis on April 28.
Keith B. Wood, a leading scholar of sports in Memphis, reconstructs the history of the Memphis Red Sox, a longstanding team in the Negro Leagues and a pillar of the city’s Black community. Wood will discuss The Memphis Red Sox: A Negro Leagues History at the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville on April 12.
FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: When she died in 1960, Zora Neale Hurston left behind a manuscript that tells the story of Oluale Kossola, known in the United States as Cudjo Lewis, the last survivor of the transatlantic slave trade. With editing by Hurston scholar Deborah G. Plant, Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” was published in 2018.
FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: The historical figures at the center of Set the World on Fire by Keisha Blain are outside the halls of power: They are Black, they are women, they are poor or working-class, and they advocate ideas that fall outside the political mainstream.
In Our Secret Society, Tanisha Ford plumbs the inner workings of the Civil Rights Movement through the complicated life of a dazzling socialite named Mollie Moon. Ford will discuss Our Secret Society at the University of Memphis on February 5.
In Before Elvis, acclaimed writer Preston Lauterbach digs into the deep culture of Black Memphis, finding the origins of the superstar’s music and style.
