Keri Leigh Merritt in conversation with Maurice Hobson- An Inconvenient Woman

CRITIC'S PICK:
Mon., Sep. 28
'An Inconvenient Woman' Author Keri Leigh Merritt in Conversation with Maurice Hobson, Auburn Avenue Research Library - A white Southern writer and social critic who dedicated herself to civil rights during the 20th century is the subject of historian Keri Leigh Merritt's biography 'An Inconvenient Woman: The Extraordinary Life of Lillian Smith, the Southerner Who Defied Jim Crow America.' Smith's first novel 'Strange Fruit' was published in 1944 and became a bestseller despite being banned in some states due to its depiction of interracial relationships in the South. Death threats ensued and she was profiled by the FBI; her house caught fire under mysterious circumstances as well. She remained undaunted, Merritt writes, and continued campaigning against segregation and injustice. In 1966, Smith succumbed to cancer in Clayton, Georgia, where she had lived for decades with her partner, Paula Snelling. The two of them published a magazine in 1936 called 'South Today' that used multi-racial contributors, a distinct rarity in those days. - Kevin C. Madigan