2024 Lillian Smith Book Awards

Join us for the 2024 Lillian Smith Book Awards Ceremony, which will be held on October 3rd, 2024, at 7 p.m. ET in the Decatur Library Auditorium. This free event includes remarks from both recipients and a Q&A followed by a book signing. 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. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is requested.

The LSBA committee is proud to award the 2024 Lillian Smith Book Award to:

SUSAN CRAWFORD for Charleston: Race, Water, and The Coming Storm

and

VICTOR LUCKERSON for Built From the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street

About the Winners:

“In their books, Susan Crawford and Victor Luckerson illustrate not only past actions of racial injustice but also the generational impacts that continue to shape the communities of Charleston and Tulsa,” said Katherine Stein, interim associate university librarian for special collections and director of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, which administers the award. “We look forward to recognizing these exceptional storytellers at the 2024 Lillian Smith Book Awards ceremony in October.”

In Charleston, Susan Crawford, a law professor, author, and technology expert, weaves together science, historical narratives, and personal stories of Black Charlestonians in her case study at the intersection of climate change and racial injustice in the coastal South Carolina city. The book grapples with the historical and present-day abuses of power that have shaped Charleston and offers a vision for a more equitable and resilient future, emphasizing the need for immediate, inclusive planning and climate justice. 

Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor at Harvard Law School. She served as Special Assistant to the President for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy in 2009 and co-led the FCC transition between the Bush and Obama administrations. Her accolades include being named one of Politico’s 50 Thinkers, Doers, and Visionaries Transforming Politics in 2015, one of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology in 2009, and one of TIME Magazine’s Tech 40: The Most Influential Minds in Tech in 2013.

In Built from the Fire, Victor Luckerson delves into the legacy of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, which continues to impact the city’s Black community more than a century later. The book traces the history of the Greenwood community from a beacon of Black entrepreneurial success during the Jim Crow era through the violent massacre, which began with a false accusation against a Black teenager and led to the destruction of more than 1,200 homes and nearly every business in Greenwood, and into the present day. Prominent figures like Loula Williams, a successful businesswoman, and the Goodwin family, whose descendants continue to play a significant role in Greenwood, are central to Luckerson’s narrative. The book documents Greenwood’s history post-massacre, emphasizing the persistent challenges of white supremacy, class stratification, and governmental neglect.  

Luckerson, a journalist from Montgomery, Alabama, is the University of Tulsa’s writer in residence for 2023-2024. In addition to sharing his research and insights with students on campus, Luckerson is collaborating with the College of Law’s Buck Colbert Franklin Legal Clinic to investigate lawsuits filed by Greenwood property owners in the aftermath of the massacre. He has written for esteemed publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, TIME Magazine, and Smithsonian magazine.

About the Award:

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 2024 winners will receive a specially-designed, glass trophy bearing the embossed Lillian Smith Book Award logo. The award was designed by Nate Nardi of Decatur Glassblowing, and the logo was designed by Jerri Wilson of the DeKalb County Public Library.

Learn more about the award here: https://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/lillian-smith