Beyond the Canon: Lillian Smith

In this episode, OA contributing editor Diane Roberts travels to Rabun County, Georgia, to visit the campgrounds owned by Lillian Smith, the author of Strange Fruit and Killers of the Dream. Roberts investigates how the environment of the campgrounds shaped Smith, a white activist and writer who worked alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, and others to disrupt white supremacy. This episode includes newly discovered audio of the voice of Lillian Smith, calling out to us in the present through her enduring legacy.Visit oxfordamerican.org/pointssouth to read “Stay and Resist,” Diane Roberts’s 2016 essay on Lillian Smith.This episode was produced by Sara A. Lewis, Diane Roberts, Noah Britton, Christian Brown, and Julia Kraus. Thanks to Nancy Smith Fichter, the Lillian E. Smith Center at Piedmont University and Dr. Matthew Teutsch for archival audio. Thank you to Professors Ravi Howard and Margaret Rose Gladney. Additional recording done by Taylor Cox at WFSU Public Media. Our podcast interns are Adam Forrester and Sydney Nichols. Post-production and score thanks to Curtis Fye and Trey Pollard of Spacebomb.This episode is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.