Kathryn Stockett

As the first NAACP field secretary for Mississippi, Medgar Wiley Evers put his life on the line to investigate racial crimes (including Emmett Till's murder) and to organize boycotts and voter registration drives. On June 12, 1963, he was shot in the back by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith as the civil rights leader unloaded a stack of "Jim Crow Must Go" T-shirts in his own driveway. His was the first assassination of a high-ranking public figure in the civil rights movement.

While Evers's death ushered in a decade of political assassinations and ignited a powder keg of racial unrest nationwide, his life of service and courage has largely been consigned to the periphery of U.S. and civil rights history. In her compelling study of collective memory and artistic production, Remembering Medgar Evers, Minrose Gwin engages the powerful body of work that has emerged in response to Evers's life and death--fiction, poetry, memoir, drama, and songs from James Baldwin, Margaret Walker, Eudora Welty, Lucille Clifton, Bob Dylan, and Willie Morris, among others. Gwin examines local news accounts about Evers, 1960s gospel and protest music as well as contemporary hip-hop, the haunting poems of Frank X Walker, and contemporary fiction such as The Help and Gwin's own novel, The Queen of Palmyra. In this study, Evers springs to life as a leader of "plural singularity," who modeled for southern African Americans a new form of cultural identity that both drew from the past and broke from it; to quote Gwendolyn Brooks, "He leaned across tomorrow."

Fifty years after his untimely death, Evers still casts a long shadow. In her examination of the body of work he has inspired, Gwin probes wide-ranging questions about collective memory and art as instruments of social justice. "Remembered, Evers's life's legacy pivots to the future," she writes, "linking us to other human rights struggles, both local and global."

A Sarah Mills Hodge Fund Publication.

Location: Street: 160 Courthouse Sq City: Oxford, Province: Mississippi Postal Code: 38655-3914 Country: United States (afegit de IndieBound)… (més)

Book Talks-Book Club
A program open to all ages
Wednesday April 10, 6:30 pm-8:30 pm, Free

Book talks led by Pandoras Collective members, a pre-selected book will be discussed each month. Bring your own copy of the book. Jan 9: Fahrenheit 451; Feb 13: Books We Love-Recommendations; Mar 13: The Measure of a Man; Apr 10: The Help
For more information please contact Britannia Branch at 604-665-2222
Sponsored by Pandora's Collective. http://www.pandorascollective.com (starfishian)… (més)

Pickford Film Center & Village Books present "Writers in the Limelight." Join us for the screening of lectures and presentations from some of the most celebrated voices in the humanities, arts, and sciences. Watch author Kathryn Stockett discuss her book The Help in this special movie showing at the Pickford Limelight Cinema. (Author is not attending this event).

Mississippi-born Kathryn Stockett's debut novel, The Help, examines the complex relationship between white Southern families and their black domestic servants in the 1960s. A movie based on The Help, directed by Stockett's childhood friend and fellow Mississippian Tate Taylor, was released in August 2011 by DreamWorks Studios.

This on-screen author talk will be showing at the Pickford Film Center's Limelight Cinema. Tickets are available through the Pickford Film Center.

Location: Street: 1416 Cornwall Ave Additional: Pickford Film Center Limelight Cinema City: Bellingham, Province: Washington Postal Code: 98225-7015 Country: United States (afegit de IndieBound)… (més)

Kathryn Stockett signa The Help.

Great friend of ours, Kathryn Stockett will be here to start our 8th Anniversary in style. She'll be here signing copies of her acclaimed debut novel, "The Help", and meeting her fans. What perfect timing for this optimistic, uplifting debut novel (and maiden publication of Amy Einhorn's new imprint) set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not t...o polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs you. The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who's raised 17 children, and Aibileen's best friend Minny, who's found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts together based on their stories is scathing and shocking, bringing pride and hope to the black community, while giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal boundaries and pursue her dreams. (jasbro)… (més)