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University of North Carolina historian William Sturkey, winner of the 10th annual Zócalo Public Square Book Prize for Hattiesburg: An American City in Black and White, visits Zócalo to discuss the community Hattiesburg built, how it helped birth and bolster the Civil Rights movement—and why those successes may ultimately have destroyed it. Professor Sturkey will be interviewed by historian David W. Blight, Sterling Professor of American History at Yale University.

Historian William Sturkey Wins the 10th Annual Zócalo Book Prize  | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Historian William Sturkey Wins the 10th Annual Zócalo Book Prize 

Hattiesburg, an Intimate Look at a Segregated Southern City, Delivers a ‘Finely Woven Microcosm of American Society’

Since 2011, the Zócalo Public Square Book Prize has honored the author of the U.S. nonfiction book published in the previous year that best enhances our understanding of community and …

The African American ‘Hidden Figures’ Who Desegregated the South’s Public Libraries

In Jackson, Blacks Endured Beatings and Dog Attacks to Gain Entrance, While in Birmingham They Used Sit-Ins to State Their Case

Historians of the civil rights era, between 1954 and 1968, have crafted an impressive body of literature focusing on the resolve of young black community activists who bravely resisted racial …

How the South Uses Its ‘Anti-Union Arsenal’ to Keep Workers From Organizing

At a Mississippi Nissan Plant, New Global Owners Wield Old Local Politics Against the United Auto Workers

The crushing rejection on August 5 of a United Auto Workers bid to organize a 6,500-worker Nissan assembly plant near Canton, Mississippi seemed to present the proverbial déjà vu …

My Life as a Mississippi River Rat

A Half Century Spent On, In, and Around Our Most All-American Body of Water

The first time I saw the Mississippi River was almost certainly from a bridge, when I was a child, looking through the backseat window of a Volkswagen bus. It was …