Zora Neale Hurston relates the stories of an extraordinary survivor of the transatlantic slave trade
When she died, Zora Neale Hurston left behind a manuscript that tells the story of the last living survivor of the transatlantic slave trade. The editor of the book, titled Barracoon, is the Hurston scholar Deborah Plant who will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 in Nashville.
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Joseph Crespino’s Atticus Finch is the biography of an iconic character
In Atticus Finch: The Biography, historian Joseph Crespino explains the construction and evolution of Harper Lee’s famous character. Crespino will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza and the Nashville Public Library. Festival events are free and open to the public.
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Ibram X. Kendi discusses Stamped From the Beginning, winner of the National Book Award
In Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, Ibram Kendi offers a panoramic, penetrating vision of a disturbing theme in the nation’s past.
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Smyrna native Ellen B. Meacham chronicles Robert F. Kennedy’s crusade against poverty
In Delta Epiphany, Ellen B. Meacham chronicles Robert F. Kennedy’s 1967 visit to the Mississippi Delta, which spurred his efforts to eradicate hunger in America. Meacham will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 27.
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Joseph Rosenbloom talks with Chapter 16 about the final days of Martin Luther King Jr.
On April 3, Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Memphis to lead a nonviolent march in support of striking sanitation workers. The next day, he was murdered. In Redemption, Joseph Rosenbloom describes those thirty-one hours with rich detail and compelling analysis. Rosenbloom will speak at Novel in Memphis on April 23 and at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 26.
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A historian considers Taylor Branch’s The King Years
Taylor Branch is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of The King Years, a selection of excerpts from his trilogy on the civil-rights movement. Branch will deliver the keynote address of the MLK50 symposium at the University of Memphis Holiday Inn on April 3.
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