Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Keri Leigh Merritt

Gautham Rao @gauthamrao.bsky.social · 9d

Took about 20 years. And I never thought a book about enslavers using deputization to give themselves policing power would be relevant to our times. But we are where we are.

My book, White Power: Policing American Slavery, is now available for preorder.

a.co/d/29c7EIP

49 380 1.1K

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · 9d

Congratulations - really glad this is coming out soon!

1 6

Reposted by Keri Leigh Merritt

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · 10d

My book on this amazing woman will be out about this time next year - read Matthew’s great piece to understand why she’s so important and deserving of a new biography:

Silas Lapham @silaslapham.bsky.social · 10d

Lillian Smith died 59 years ago today. MLK called her “one of the brightest stars in the human firmament” and proclaimed “no southerner seared the conscience of white southerners on the question of racial injustice than Lillian Smith.”

interminablerambling.medium.com/lillian-smit...

Lillian Smith’s Enduring Legacy

What makes Lillian Smith’s work endure? What makes any writer’s work endure? The relationship between an author and their text, and a text…

interminablerambling.medium.com

9 32

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · 10d

My book on this amazing woman will be out about this time next year - read Matthew’s great piece to understand why she’s so important and deserving of a new biography:

Silas Lapham @silaslapham.bsky.social · 10d

Lillian Smith died 59 years ago today. MLK called her “one of the brightest stars in the human firmament” and proclaimed “no southerner seared the conscience of white southerners on the question of racial injustice than Lillian Smith.”

interminablerambling.medium.com/lillian-smit...

Lillian Smith’s Enduring Legacy

What makes Lillian Smith’s work endure? What makes any writer’s work endure? The relationship between an author and their text, and a text…

interminablerambling.medium.com

9 32

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · 18d

🙏♥️

1

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · 18d

Thank you, my friend. I appreciate the shoutout more than you know.♥️

Reposted by Keri Leigh Merritt

Jonathan Stegall @jonathanstegall.bsky.social · 18d

was used for many things, but one of the things was to keep abolitionist speech away from poor white people (which certainly could contribute to keeping it away from enslaved Black people).

1 3 10

Reposted by Keri Leigh Merritt

Jonathan Stegall @jonathanstegall.bsky.social · 18d

She writes in her excellent book "Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum" about the carceral infrastructure that existed for poor white people (and of course was immediately turned upon Black people in the aftermath of the defeat of Reconstruction), and how that infrastructure

1 4 15

Reposted by Keri Leigh Merritt

Jonathan Stegall @jonathanstegall.bsky.social · 18d

Of course there's no shortage of suppressed speech in this country, but one particular form that I learned about from @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social was just how much abolitionist speech was kept from poor white people in the antebellum South. In many ways they lived under a police state.

1 13 26

Reposted by Keri Leigh Merritt

Silas Lapham @silaslapham.bsky.social · 19d

Just a reminder as WEB DuBois, Lillian Smith, @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social and countless others point out, you’re expendable.

interminablerambling.medium.com/divide-and-c...

Divide and Conquer: You’re Expendable

I’ve always known that rhetoric, speech, and writing serve as weapons to sever communities or as tools to bring them together. Because of…

interminablerambling.medium.com

4 7

Reposted by Keri Leigh Merritt

Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · Aug 22

The lack of food has been "been live streamed into peoples living rooms for almost 2 years now"

Tess Ingram from UNICEF on being told Israel has dismissed the IPC report declaring famine in Gaza City as a fabricated report to fit Hamas's fake campaign.

4 27 55

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · Aug 17

I am - thanks for your enthusiasm 😊

1

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · Aug 15

Aww tysm! Unfortunately Piedmont shut the Center down last December so you can’t go there now :( it’s so horrible bc it was an amazing place for artists/writers to have residencies, too.

1 1

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · Aug 15

Thanks my friend.

1

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · Aug 15

Completely finished (edited & turned in!) my new biography of Lillian Smith, the bestselling author, civil rights activist, & FIRST white Southerner to publicly call for integration.

Will be out September 2026 from St. Martin’s Press. Excited to share her amazing story with the world.♥️

2 4 23

Reposted by Keri Leigh Merritt

The Gray Sage @walterdgreason.bsky.social · Aug 14

A Secret History of Pope Leo XIV and Villanova University
#BookSky

1 1 4

Reposted by Keri Leigh Merritt

Ian Reifowitz @ianreifowitz.bsky.social · Aug 4

Please check out my new book on Trump and stereotypes, published today. Also, this Weds at 6:30 my co-author Anastacia Kurylo and I will be at Barnes & Noble at the SmithHaven Mall talking about the book. www.amazon.com/Riling-Base-...

Riling Up the Base: Examining Trump’s Use of Stereotypes through an Interdisciplinary Lens (De Gruyter Series in Race, Ethnicity, and Political Communication, 3)

Riling Up the Base: Examining Trump’s Use of Stereotypes through an Interdisciplinary Lens (De Gruyter Series in Race, Ethnicity, and Political Communication, 3) [Kurylo, Anastacia, Reifowitz, Ian] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Riling Up the Base: Examining Trump’s Use of Stereotypes through an Interdisciplinary Lens (De Gruyter Series in Race, Ethnicity, and Political Communication, 3)

www.amazon.com

2 5

Reposted by Keri Leigh Merritt

Silas Lapham @silaslapham.bsky.social · Aug 6

Thinking about her today too with the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima.

interminablerambling.medium.com/wed-find-it-...

“We’d find it hard to have enemies if we cared about what happened to them”: How the Construction…

Fear arises not just through a lack of action but also through, as Lillian Smith puts it, “the singsong voices of politicians who preached…

interminablerambling.medium.com

2 3

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · Aug 6

First printed in Parents magazine

1 1

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · Aug 6

1 2 7

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · Jul 21

Thank you Rachel!! We are trying, despite the destruction of the NEH.

Y’all can read more & help make the film a reality here:

southerndocumentaryfund.networkforgood.com/projects/240...

5 18

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · Jul 21

Aww thank you Rachel! Despite the NEH setbacks, we are pushing forward!

3

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · Jul 16

Columbus, Georgia - hope to see you tomorrow!

Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · Jun 2

allevents.in/columbus/jul...

2

Reposted by Keri Leigh Merritt

Silas Lapham @silaslapham.bsky.social · Jul 12

If you haven't watched Hal Jacobs' documentary on Lillian Smith, you can now. Lonnie King called Smith "Jane the Baptist" because she came early. @filmmakerjulie.bsky.social @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social @markhamillofficial.bsky.social

www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9jU...

Lillian Smith: Breaking the Silence

YouTube video by Hal Jacobs

www.youtube.com

1 5 7

Reposted by Keri Leigh Merritt

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · Jun 29

Netanyahu, the master of misdirection. During the 12 days that Israel and Iran were at war, more Palestinians were killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry there, than in that conflict. Deaths from disease, starvation and a lack of medicine are worsening the toll.

As all eyes are on Iran, the horror in Gaza persists

Where people once died in air strikes, now they are dying as they try to find food

www.economist.com

1 17 17