Join authors Ginny Ayers Savage and Jessica Wilkerson for a conversation about women-led social justice movements in Appalachia.  The event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by Friends of the Knox County Public Library, Union Ave Books, Knox County Public Library, and East Tennessee Historical Society. 

In To Live Here, You Have to Fight, Wilkerson tells the stories of the women in Appalachia who acted as leaders and soldiers in a grassroots war on poverty in the 1960s and 1970s and shaped and sustained programs, engaged in ideological debates, offered fresh visions of democratic participation and faced personal political struggles.

Ayers drew on the notes and files of her late father, reporter, UPI bureau chief, longtime university administrator, and author Lon Savage, as well has her own research to complete his unfinished book, Never Justice, Never Peace, the story of Mother Jones and the miner rebellion at Paint Creek and Cabin Creek in 1912-13.

The authors’ books may be purchased at the event, and Wilkerson and Ayers will be available to sign copies.