The 1991 Lillian Smith Awards

By Staff

Vol. 14, No. 1, 1992, pp. 18-20

The Smith Awards were founded in 1968 to recognize and encourage outstanding writing about the South. Named in honor of Lillian Smith, a Georgian who long distinguished herself as a advocate of human rights and one of the region’s most sensitive writers, the awards are sponsored annually by the Southern Regional Council. They are the oldest regional book awards honoring work about the South. The 1991 winners are J. L. Chestnut, Jr., and Julia Cass for Black in Selma for non-fiction and Mary Ward Brown for Tongues of Flame for fiction. The statements that follow are excerpted from remarks at the awards ceremony luncheon in Atlanta on November 8, 1991.

Cleophus Thomas is an Anniston, Ala., attorney and a member of the 1991 Lillian Smith Awards jury.