*Next Generation Indie Book Award for Regional Fiction (US and Canada) *National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Fiction (Southeast) *Independent Publishers IPPY Bronze Medal for Regional Fiction (South) *Readers' Favorite Silver Medal for Social Issues Fiction 
 A powerful story of race, family, and small town life in the South in the 1950s. 
When the Little Rock Central High School desegregation crisis sends shock waves across the nation in 1957, widower Sam Tate, a white merchant and councilman with two young children, faces new questions of conscience, belief, and child-rearing in tiny Unionville, Arkansas. Becky Reeves, an unmarried northerner who has come south to teach while hiding a secret past, must decide how to approach current events in her seventh-grade class without getting fired. Gran Tate, a strong-willed woman who likes quilting and helping raise her grandchildren, dislikes blacks and Yankees and fears she may lose everything she holds dear.
Life gets more complicated for all of them when Governor Faubus calls out the National Guard to stop the integration of Central High, President Eisenhower sends federal troops to enforce it, and Unionville editor Preston Upshaw fans the flames of hatred to sell newspapers.
Amid cross burnings, White Citizens’ Council meetings, and fervent speculating and sermonizing by townsfolk, white and black, at home, work, and church, Sam questions old ways, Gran clings to tradition, and Becky angers parents and school officials. The unrest brings Sam and Becky together then combines with Becky’s secret to stand between them in an emotional journey through a world where love and courage struggle against fear and hate.

South of Little Rock (Small Town Race Relations)

Literature & Fiction

Adams, George Rollie

United States

Barn Loft Press

Found in Pieces

A heart-rending story of two mothers-one white, one black-struggling for truth and justice in the Civil Rights-era South In 1958, when almost no women own and edit newspapers, Pearl Goodbar, a white mother of two teen-age girls, risks her family's financial future to buy a small, defunct Southern weekly. Before she can get the paper up and running, her husband loses his job, a smoldering desegregation crisis flames up in the state capital, and Elton Washington-a young black man whose mother, Sadie Rose, is also a businesswoman-disappears. The mystery of Elton's whereabouts brings Pearl and Sadie Rose together in a gut-wrenching search for truth and justice and leaves Pearl facing editorial and business decisions that could lead to more money woes and even physical harm to herself and those around her. Which way will she turn when commitment to honesty, integrity, and equal rights runs headlong into responsibility and duty to family? Both women's lives are complicated further when townspeople learn what happened with Elton. Meanwhile, the head of the local White Citizens' Council stirs racial hatred, and another prominent white man hides a dark secret that Sadie Rose knows but will not tell. The town's former marshal-a white septuagenarian everyone calls Mr. Claude-and a black businessman-Leon Jackson-play important roles in the shocking events, including murder, that follow. But Pearl is key to the answers they seek. Find out why.

Found in Pieces (Small Town Race Relations)

When Henry Grant returns to Indiana after WWI, he finds his family decimated by illness, abuse, and debt. He can't change that, but alone and with nothing to lose, he can punish the man he blames for it. If he can find him. By 1922, Henry believes he is hiding in southern Arkansas, amid the chaos of Prohibition and the country's latest oil boom.Henry follows the fellow to Berrytown, a once-sleepy village now overflowing with lease hounds, roughnecks, drillers, bootleggers, and gamblers, all come to cash in on black gold. Crime is rampant and the Ku Klux Klan is stirring racial tension while also warring on booze and prostitution. It's a good place to hide and a hard place to search. To get around, Henry takes a job as a mule skinner hauling drilling supplies, only to learn that his boss is a bootlegger.Mary Dutton, a widow struggling to support herself and her twelve-year-old son Jimmy, is caught up in a different web of illegal substances. She works in a pharmacy where the owners-Mary's cousin Eunice and her husband-are forcing her to sell marijuana, cocaine, and heroin under the nose of federal agents.Otis Leatherwood, a farmer who is Mary's beloved uncle and Eunice's estranged father, likes moonshine and is unaware of the drug traffic. His problem is with the oil. He believes drilling is ruining the environment, and he's willing to risk everything to stop it, even though his best friend and Black neighbor Isaiah Watson sees it as a means of escaping bigotry in the South. As Berrytown grows apace and oil blackens the land, all of them face life-changing decisions.

Look Unto the Land (Small Town Race Relations)

Look Unto the Land