The Athens Historical Society presents a conversation with author Keri Leigh Merritt (PhD, UGA) and Patricia Bell-Scott (Professor Emerita, UGA). Free and open to the public, followed by a reception and a book signing by the author.

Lillian Smith was a hugely popular, bestselling author in the mid-20th century, but today her name and legacy have been mostly forgotten. In her new book AN INCONVENIENT WOMAN: The Extraordinary Life of Lillian Smith, the Southerner Who Defied Jim Crow America (St. Martin's Press; foreword by Rev. Dr. William Barber II), award-winning historian Keri Leigh Merritt aims to shine the spotlight back on this brave and complicated woman, sixty years after Smith's death.

A lifelong Georgia resident, Smith (who was white) spent her career advocating for the rights of Black Americans. She wrote several books, including her best-known novel Strange Fruit, and countless pamphlets that urged white Americans in general-and white Southerners in particular—to work on behalf of civil rights for their Black neighbors. She co-edited noteworthy Southern literary magazines (with her now-acknowledged romantic partner Paula Snelling) that featured the work of Black and white authors, a practice unheard of in the early-to-mid 20th century.

And she worked with leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and Paul Robeson to help make political progress on civil rights.