Join Wanda Lloyd and David Pilgrim for a conversation on race relations in America and their works Coming Full Circle: From Jim Crow to Journalism (Lloyd) and Haste to Rise: A Remarkable Experience of Black Education During Jim Crow (Pilgrim). Hosted by Jared Porter. Opening title descriptions can be found at: https://www.humanitiestennessee.org/description-sfb2020/ The Festival remains free with help from individual donors. A gift of any amount is meaningful and can be made at https://www.humanitiestennessee.org/support_advocate/support/ Thanks for your support! Follow us at our website http://www.humtn.org/sfb and on social media to get Festival updates (@sofestofbooks on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram).

Newspaper editor Wanda Lloyd is a self-professed “word nerd.” She uses her love of words to raise awareness about common mistakes and misuses, poking fun at the ways even professionals get words and letters mixed up. “Come on, now,” she implores. We can all play a part in making the world a better place because words do matter. Coming Full Circle: From Jim Crow to Journalism is Wanda’s self-reflective exploration of her journey from childhood in the Deep South to becoming a daily newspaper editor. She retired as the executive editor of the Montgomery (AL) Advertiser and then worked as the chair and associate professor for the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications at Savannah State University. She was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Hall of Fame and is co-host of the 2 Old Chicks podcast. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Pioneering journalist Wanda Lloyd discusses her memoir with bestselling Georgia author Tina McElroy Ansa. Coming Full Circle is the memoir of an African American woman who grew up privileged and educated in the segregated culture of the American South before and during the twentieth-century civil rights movement. Born in Savannah, Georgia, Wanda Smalls Lloyd became one of the nation’s highest-ranking newspaper journalists, and one of the first African American women to be the top editor of a major newspaper. In Coming Full Circle, Lloyd reflects on her upbringing in coastal Savannah, Georgia, editing roles at seven daily newspapers, and her decision to return to Savannah to make a difference in her childhood community. Despite segregated social, community, and educational systems, Lloyd’s Southern upbringing-steeped in religious and home training, strong cultural foundations, and early leadership opportunities-produced an adult woman who realized her professional dream of working for daily newspapers and rose to become an editor at the Washington Post and a senior editor at USA Today before returning South as the executive editor of the Montgomery Advertiser. Lloyd is an advocate and an example for how diversity helped newsrooms become reflections of accuracy for their audience. Her memoir offers readers and open discussion on the intersection of race, gender, and culture in professional journalism. She is joined in discussion by Georgia bestselling author Tina McElroy Ansa. Ansa is the author of The Hand I Fan With, Baby Of The Family and Taking After Mudear. She is an educator, filmmaker, and publisher of DownSouth Press. Ansa is a member of the Georgia Center for the Book’s Advisory Council. *The captions for this video have not yet been edited for clarity and correctness. If you need better captions than the ones provided automatically by YouTube, please check back soon.

Wanda Lloyd was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Hall of Fame on Friday, August 9, 2019, in Miami, FL.