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PRAYING FOR SHEETROCK
Somehow the sweeping changes of the Civil Rights movement bypassed rural McIntosh Country, Georgia. “Dr. King come as far south as Albany but he never did come here,” said the old-timers, as if it would have taken no one less than King to overturn the ancient system of segregation descending from slavery time, and to overthrow and the semi-criminal almost-legendary rule of Sheriff Tom Poppell. Praying for Sheetrock (1991) tells the true story of a group of younger African-American leaders, allied with a motley crew of Legal Services attorneys, to begin to right the wrongs of several centuries’ duration. Finalist for the National Book Award Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Winner of the The Salon Book Award For Non-Fiction Winner of the QPB [Quality Paperback Books] New Voices Award Winner of the Annisfield-Wolf Book Award Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award Winner of the Georgia Historical Society Bell Award Winner of the Georgia Author Award |
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[...] the Altamaha River, a place made infamous by Melissa Fay Greene’s 1991 work of nonfiction, Praying for Sheetrock, we always have the blue cooler iced down and full of these sweet, wild-caught Georgia shrimp. [...]