Liberating Dixie: An Editor's Life, From Ole Miss to Obama

Liberating Dixie is a wonderful blend of courage and humor. From his first work as a journalist with Hodding Carter's Delta Democrat Times in Greenville, Mississippi, to his many years at The Charlotte Observer in North Carolina, Ed Williams has used the power of the pen to craft his distinguished career as a master journalist.—William Ferris, author of The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities

Ed Williams' commentary has sparkled over the years with rare mixtures of wisdom and humor, elegance and irreverence, patriotism and skepticism, courage and tolerance. In Liberating Dixie these characteristics are writ large. It's a valuable collection because, God knows, we need all the liberation we can get in the South.—Curtis Wilkie author of The Fall of the House of Zeus

Ed Williams is a longtime newspaperman who never lost the passion that brought him into the craft. Passionate about the promises of the American creed and the need to confront its false prophets and and bigoted betrayers, he never backed away from a fight or beat his chest as he entered one. He values community, believes in dialogue more than loud debate and is a genuinely good human being to boot. This selection from his work over the last half century is worth reading — and teaching — from first page to last.—Hodding Carter III award-winning journalist, professor of leadership and public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and former president of the Knight Foundation