The discussion on reparations for slavery and civil rights violations in America has perhaps never reached such a fever pitch as it is during the 2020 election cycle. Just this week, 2020 nominee Cory Booker and author Ta-Nehisi Coates testified before Congress on the necessary justice that reparations would bring to the African American community and the lasting legacy that slavery has in America today. Joining this roiling discussion is Ken Woodley, former editor of the Farmville Herald in Virginia and author of The Road to Healing: A Civil Rights Reparations Story in Prince Edward County, Virginia. Woodley campaigned for civil rights reparations in Prince Edward County after learning that the county closed their public schools in reaction to the Brown vs Board decision. Woodley’s crusade resulted in a state-wide scholarship program for those who had their right to education taken from them, a victory that Julian Bond called the first real civil rights reparations in the United States. Since the release of his book in April, Woodley’s account has brought him into the international conversation on reparations. Woodley’s perspective has been featured on Joshua Johnson’s 1A; the Community Watch program on D.C.’s WPFW; Detroit Today; The News & Advance in Lynchburg, Virginia; and The Richmond Times Dispatch. Woodley was also a guest of honor at a panel featuring former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder hosted by the Democratic Party of Virginia and held at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center in Richmond, Virginia. The panel is dedicated to Barbara Rose Johns, a community organizer in Prince Edward County and key figure in The Road to Healing. Woodley’s take on reparations was internationally considered in Le Monde alongside the likes of Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. The passion for justice and reconciliation that Woodley holds should be viewed as a basic civil duty, and we commend Woodley for his dedication.

Legendary civil rights activist Bob Zellner gained a loyal cadre of fans after the publication of his award-winning memoir The Wrong Side of Murder Creek in 2011, a book which was recently re-released in trade paperback, but the story will reach an entirely new audience with the production of Son of the South, a movie based on his book that is due out in fall 2019. Barry Alexander Brown and Spike Lee team up on project, with Brown directing and Lee signed on as executive producer; Brown has worked with Lee for more than 30 years, serving as editor on almost every film Lee has made. Brown met Bob Zellner twenty years ago and was fascinated by the civil rights activist’s story of redemption. He has adapted Zellner’s memoir into a biographical film, covering Zellner’s life from his time as a youth (he was born into a Klan family) to his becoming the first white field secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The film features two rising stars in Lucas Till and Lucy Hale, both well-known for their roles in the hit TV shows MacGyver and Pretty Little Liars, respectively. Till plays Zellner with the passion and commitment to civil and human rights causes that the subject retains in his 80th year. To film one exciting scene, Brown and crew reenacted the tragic beating the Freedom Riders suffered in Montgomery outside of the actual Greyhound bus station where the historic event took place. Read more about Son of the South at the Hollywood Reporter and Variety (https://bit.ly/2WFJ9sI; https://bit.ly/31qwTe3), at AL.com, and also enjoy a special documentary interview with Barry Brown from Germantown High School’s student-led news program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV6UgFEaxF4.

There are many ways in which Frye Gaillard has been a great NewSouth Books author and friend, not the least of which has been his adventurous spirit and willingness to travel with his books. With six in all published by NewSouth (and two more forthcoming), he has had many reasons to be on the road, but interest and critical reviews for his masterwork on the 1960s, A Hard Rain, have brought him opportunities from coast to coast. He’s had wonderful events at such far-flung places as the Ford Hall Forum in Boston, Brown University in Providence, the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Newseum in Washington, DC, Jimmy
Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, and David Brower Center in Berkeley, California. And he’s made appearances at a long list of bookstores, including such favorites as Park Road Books, Malaprop’s, Prairie Lights, and Page and Palette, and some new ones too: in Portland, Oregon, he stopped at Rose City Book Pub, where his book talk was wonderfully received. Recently he had the great pleasure to participate in Greensboro Bound, a book festival in Greensboro, North Carolina, organized by Scuppernong Books. Coincidentally, Frye’s program was held at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, which occupies the former Woolworth’s building, where the lunch-counter sit-ins discussed in the very first pages of A Hard Rain took place. Frye was moved to be in that hallowed space. And suddenly it seemed as if the miles had returned him to where he’d started with A Hard Rain. Metaphorically speaking, that is. What an amazing journey it has been.