lafayette-bookDistinguished Senior Scholar-in-Residence Bernard LaFayette Jr. has received an accolade for his recent memoir. In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma (University Press of Kentucky, 2013) has been named a winner of the 2014 Lillian Smith Book Awards. The award recognizes authors whose writing extends the legacy of the writer, educator and social critic Lillian Smith, who challenged Americans on issues of social and racial justice.

LaFayette, an ordained minister, is a longtime civil rights activist and organizer, an authority on nonviolent social change, and chair of the National Board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In Peace and Freedom, written with Kathryn Lee Johnson, describes his experiences as director of the Alabama Voter Project in Selma during the early 1960s, a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement.   

The Lillian Smith Book Awards are sponsored by the University of Georgia Libraries, in partnership with the Southern Regional Council and the Georgia Center for the Book. In Peace and Freedom was one of two books selected to receive the award out of 39 submissions.

The awards will be presented on August 31 at 2:30 p.m. at the Decatur Library as part of the annual Decatur Book Festival.