6:00pm to 7:00pm Book Discussion | 7:00pm to 7:45pm Book Signing

The League of Women Voters of Greenwich and the Greenwich Historical Society are delighted to welcome award-winning reporter and acclaimed author of The Woman’s Hour, Elaine Weiss, to discuss her new book, Spell Freedom. Long-listed for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non-Fiction, the book charts the efforts of four ordinary citizens in the South as they established secret schools to help black citizens overcome onerous Jim Crow laws and register to vote. The conversation will be moderated by academic leader and author, Susan Herbst. Professor Herbst is President Emeritus of the University of Connecticut, where she currently serves as University Professor of Political Science.

pell Freedom tells the story of a group of largely uncelebrated heroes of the civil rights movement and shows how they laid the foundation in the mid-1950s for the success of the Civil and Voting Rights Acts of the mid-1960s. Their secretive efforts helped establish over 900 citizenship schools across the South, while also nurturing a generation of activists - many of whom were women - trained in community organizing, political engagement, and the tactics of peaceful resistance.

We hope you will join us for this inspirational story of how an unlikely group of people overcame the powerful forces arrayed against them to triumph in the face of injustice.

If you have any questions about the event, please contact Deirdre Kamlani at events [at] lwvgreenwich.org.

A book signing will follow the discussion from 7:00pm to 7:45pm. Registrants will be able to purchase books at the event from Dianne’s Books or before the event HERE.

Registrants can submit questions for the author in advance by sending them to Lauren Ackerley at the Greenwich Historical Society at lackerley [at] greenwichhistory.org.

Speaker Biography: Elaine Weiss

Elaine Weiss is a journalist and author whose writing has been recognized with prizes from the Society of Professional Journalists, her by-line has appeared in many national publications.

She is the author of three books of narrative history: The highly-acclaimed The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote — hailed as a “riveting, nail-biting political thriller” with powerful parallels to today’s political environment. The Woman’s Hour was a GoodReads Readers’ Choice Award winner, short-listed for the 2019 Chautauqua Prize, and received the American Bar Association’s highest honor, the 2019 Silver Gavel Award.

Her first book, Fruits of Victory: The Woman’s Land Army in the Great War was excerpted in Smithsonian Magazine and featured on C-Span and public radio stations nationwide.

Her newest book, Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools that Built the Civil Rights Movement, carries readers into the heart of the 20th century civil rights and voting rights struggle, and has won praise as a “powerful, intimate, and enlightening book” with “elegant writing, masterful storytelling, and prodigious research.”

Elaine is a popular public speaker and frequent media commentator, and was an historical advisor for the Broadway musical SUFFS. She lives in Baltimore with her husband, and they have two grown children. When not at her desk, she can be found paddling her little purple kayak on the Chesapeake Bay.