Category: georgia

+ 13th, Ava DuVernay, caste, clayton, georgia, georgia, georgia literature, isabel wilkerson, lillian e smith, michelle alexander, new jim crow
Spring 2021 LES Studies Course
Last year, I posted about my first Lillian E. Smith Studies course which I taught in spring 2020. Today, I want to share the syllabus I constructed for the spring 2021 semester. The focus, still, is on Smith and her work, but I am also incorporating Michelle Alexander’s work on mass incarnation, using NPR’s Louder than and Riot podcast and Ava DuVernay’s 13th. Along … Read More Spring 2021 LES Studies Course

+ #runwithmaud, ahmaud arbery, EJI legacy museum, equal justice initiative, georgia, ida b wells, lillian e smith, national memorial for peace and justice
We Must Stop the Roots from Ever Appearing
A couple of years ago, I took students to the EJI Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. When we first entered the museum, a student saw the flag that hung from the headquarters of the NAACP in New York throughout the 1920s and the 1930s. The flag, which flew outside the headquarters, drew attention to racial violence … Read More We Must Stop the Roots from Ever Appearing

+ clayton, georgia, georgia, killers of the dream, laurel falls camp, lillian e smith, lillian smith: breaking the silence, rabun county, strange fruit, Uncategorized
Laurel Falls Camp at 100
Note: This article originally appeared in the Spring 2020 issue of “A View from the Mountain,” the Lillian E. Smith Center’s newsletter. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Laurel Falls Camp. Lillian Smith’s father, Calvin, opened the camp in 1920, and it was the first private camp for girls in the state of Georgia. “Miss Lil,” as the campers called her, took over … Read More Laurel Falls Camp at 100

+ african american literature, frank yerby, georgia, georgia literature, griffin's way, the foxes of harrow, white nationalism, white supremacy
The Mythologized South in Frank Yerby’s “Griffin’s Way”
I have to admit, when I started reading Frank Yerby’s Griffin’s Way (1962) I was not impressed. Having written 33 novels over the course of his career, I knew I wouldn’t like all of them, but Griffin’s Way struck me, from the beginning, as odd. I didn’t really like the organization of Candace Trevor’s section. It seemed really disjointed and not at all what … Read More The Mythologized South in Frank Yerby’s “Griffin’s Way”
+ absalom, african american literature, frank yerby, george washington cable, georgia, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, new orelans, southern literature, william faulkner
Frank Yerby’s "The Foxes of Harrow" and Resistence
Original 1946 Cover Frank Yerby’s first novel The Foxes of Harrow originally appeared in 1946. After attempting to publish protest fiction, Yerby turned to historical fiction as his literary avenue. The shift catapulted him to the top of the literary charts, becoming one of the best selling African American authors of all time. Yerby published around 33 novels which sold over 55 million copies. Yerby’s … Read More Frank Yerby’s "The Foxes of Harrow" and Resistence