Alabama Lawyers Pave Ways for the Southern Literary Trail
Honoring the South's unique cultural contributions
Alabama joins Georgia and Mississippi in March to debut a first-in-the-nation project, The Southern Literary Trail. The three southeastern states have collaborated to build a trail that links museums, festivals and historic homes associated with the major fiction writers of the 20th century. "There are no other three states in the nation that could build this project, thanks to our region's history as being home to America's greatest novelists and playwrights," says William Gantt, a partner in the Birmingham firm of Huie, Fernambucq & Stewart and the Alabama chair of the trail. The project is supported by the Alabama Humanities Foundation, the Alabama Center for the Book and their counterparts in Georgia and Mississippi.
A meeting at Fitzgerald's house
"This project would never have been possible without the hard work of Julian and Leslie McPhillips, who saved the Fitzgerald House in Montgomery," adds Gantt. The first organizational meeting for the trail occurred in April 2005 when representatives of each state met in the former home of Zelda Sayre and Scott Fitzgerald that was preserved by the Montgomery attorney and his wife. Even beyond Alabama's borders, the state's lawyers are helping to keep southern literature alive. Anniston attorney Cleo Thomas serves on the Lillian E. Smith Foundation which operates the author's camp in Clayton, Georgia as a retreat for current writers. Smith is one of the novelists being recognized in Georgia.
Making choices for the Trail
After the first meeting in Montgomery, the project took off, even though it required years to select writers in each state to honor. "There are obvious omissions," Gantt says, "but a celebration of the classic southern fiction writers of the 20th century was clearly the place to start." After the writers were selected, the trail's organizers decided to host a tri-state festival, "Trailfest," in March 2009. The events planned in Alabama will appeal to lawyers and most events are free.
Mark your calendar
Fitzgerald scholars Kirk Curnutt and Jim Meredith will speak about the Jazz Age couple and the Sayres, a famous family in Alabama's judicial history, at the Fitzgerald Museum on Saturday, March 7. Hartselle will pay tribute to William Bradford Huie, who often wrote of racial and civil injustice, during the weekend of March 27 with Wayne Flynt as a featured speaker.
On Saturday, March 28, the Old Courthouse Museum in Monroeville will offer panels of childhood friends of Harper Lee and Truman Capote discussing the writers. Following a picnic lunch on courthouse grounds, another panel of local African-American citizens will discuss the environment of racial injustice and segregation depicted in To Kill a Mockingbird. The entire day, including lunch, costs only $15 per person. Call (251) 575-7433 for reservations.
Other writers and trail towns in Alabama include Lillian Hellman (Demopolis), Ralph Ellison (Tuskegee), Albert Murray, William March, and Eugene Walter (Mobile). Visit www.southernliterarytrail.org for a complete calendar of all trail events, information and destinations across the southeast.
