Join McIntyre’s Books for Sylvester Allen Jr. and Belle Boggs, The Legend Of Wyatt Outlaw on Sat, Jan 31, 11am-12pm. The book investigates the history of a racist murder to set right the future, from Reconstruction through the Black Lives Matter movement.

BOOK SUMMARY

Wyatt Outlaw’s story was one of Black success: He was a Union League leader, business owner, and the first Black town constable and commissioner in Graham, a small town located in North Carolina’s Alamance County. But in 1870, Outlaw was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, setting off a dramatic series of events: more lynchings, a Republican-led “war” against the Klan, and a white supremacist crackdown on Black political power that continues today. As a child, Black activist, musician, and Graham native Sylvester Allen frequently passed the site where Outlaw was killed without ever learning his name. Belle Boggs, white and also from the South, taught high school in Alamance County without knowing Outlaw’s importance.

Allen and Boggs both sought to discover why Outlaw had been erased from mainstream history books. In The Legend of Wyatt Outlaw, they share what they found in artful detail and connect Outlaw’s story to the violence against Black people in Alamance and throughout the United States, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow, the civil rights era, and Black Lives Matter. Drawing on archival research, interviews, and their own personal stories, Allen and Boggs join the conversation begun by historian Peniel Joseph and activist William Barber II about a third Reconstruction in America, while also offering ways to move forward for any community struggling with a history of racism.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sylvester Allen Jr. is a writer, composer, and director based in Graham, North Carolina. Belle Boggs is a professor of English at North Carolina State University and the author of several books, including The Gulf and The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood.

This free event takes place indoors at McIntyre’s Books. The space is ADA-compliant. Free parking is available on-site. No pets are allowed. Fearrington Village is part of the Chatham County Craft Beverages & Country Inns Trail. See more events at Fearrington Village.