Since 2011, the Zócalo Public Square Book Prize has honored the author of the U.S. nonfiction book published in the previous year that best enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion. Though there have been many moments in the past decade that have reinforced for us the importance of this work, the announcement of the 10th annual book prize occurs as the novel coronavirus creates myriad new challenges to community cohesion, not least the need for social distancing.

This year we honor historian William Sturkey, for his extraordinary portrait of a community in his latest book, Hattiesburg: An American City in Black and White.

Sturkey has produced a meticulously detailed study of the historical, cultural, and economic roots of Jim Crow in the post-Reconstruction “New South.” Through personal profiles of black and white citizens of Hattiesburg over multiple generations, Sturkey weaves a moving narrative that exemplifies the purpose of the Zócalo Book Prize.

Our judges found in Hattiesburg “a finely woven microcosm of American society as a whole [that] points to the immense work still ahead to make it into a more perfect and just union.” The judges particularly recognized Sturkey’s achievement of “a rich and deeply nuanced account of the development of the white and black communities of Hattiesburg, Missisippi, under the apartheid system of Jim Crow.”

One aspect of the book that struck many of them was its seamless melding of cultural and economic history. Another was the nostalgia of many of Hattiesburg’s African American residents for the community that disappeared with the victories of the civil rights movement.

Why would people miss a time when they had fewer rights? Sturkey’s book describes the ways in which the African American community of Hattiesburg found strength in one another and the institutions they built. This is the subject of Sturkey’s Zócalo Book Prize Lecture: “How Do Oppressed People Build Community?” He will deliver the lecture and accept the prize, which includes a $5,000 award, during a live event streaming on Zócalo’s YouTube channel on May 20 at 5 PM PDT. Jai Hamid Bashir, winner of the ninth annual Zócalo Poetry Prize, will deliver a public reading of her poem “Little Bones” prior to the lecture.

Previous book prize winners include Michael Ignatieff, Danielle Allen, and Jonathan Haidt.

We had a chance to speak with Sturkey, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill historian, about the research, themes, and structure of Hattiesburg.

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