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Wayne Greenhaw

Introduction

Wayne Greenhaw is an award-winning author and journalist who began his career reporting on many civil rights events and political developments in southern politics in the 1960s and 1970s.

Greenhaw has authored 22 books, fiction and non-fiction. Two of his most recent books deal with the civil rights events he covered as a journalist for the Alabama Journal, and Montgomery Advertiser, both based in Montgomery, Alabama. Fighting the Devil in Dixie: How Civil Rights Activists Took on the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama was published in January of 2011, and The Thunder of Angels: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People Who Broke the Back of Jim Crow (2006) was written by Greenhaw and Donnie Williams.

Personal Life

Greenhaw was born in north Alabama and was struck with polio as a child. Following his high school graduation in Tuscaloosa, he attended the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he studied creative writing under Ashmead Scott and met Jack Kerouac and other beat writers. He and his wife Sally, a retired circuit judge, now divide their time between San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and Montgomery, Alabama.

Greenhaw graduated from the University of Alabama with a bachelor’s degree in English where he studied under Hudson Strode.

Career

His first novel, The Golfer, was published in 1968. His first non-fiction book, The making of a Hero: Lt. William L. Calley and the My Lai Massacre led to his appointment as a Neiman Fellow at Harvard University in 1972-1973. In 1973, he and another Nieman fellow conducted seminars on southern politics at the Kennedy School of Government.

Greenhaw co-owned a publishing company and served as editor and publisher of the monthly lifestyle publication titled Alabama. He served as the director of tourism and travel for the state of Alabama and was a cabinet member in Governor Jim Folsom, Jr.'s administration beginning in 1993. The advertising campaign, Stars Fell on Alabama, and a campaign promoting the state’s attractions during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia were awarded the state’s first national advertising awards.

Greenhaw has remained active in community organizations including appointments to the Alabama Humanities Foundation, and advisory committees on arts education and the Alabama Film Commission.

Awards and Recognition

Greenhaw was awarded the Harper Lee Award as Alabama’s distinguished writer in 2006, presented by the Alabama Writer’s Forum.In 2007 and 2010, short stories by Greenhaw won first place in the Hackney Literary Awards.

In 2005, he was the recipient of the 9th Clarence Cason Award for Nonfiction, presented annually by the University of Alabama’s College of Communication and Information Sciences. In 1995, Greenhaw was named the Travel Writer of the Year by the Southeast Tourism Society.

Greenhaw’s writing has been recognized by fellow writers Pat Conroy, Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump, Fannie Flagg, Pulitzer Prize winners Rick Bragg and Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee said Greenhaw is one of the best-ever writers of narrative fiction.

Published Books

The Thunder of Angels: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People who Broke the Back of Jim Crow by Donnie Williams with Wayne Greenhaw, Lawrence Hill Books, 2006.

King of Country, a novel, River City Publishing, 2004.

The Spider’s Web, a novella and short stories, River City Publishing, 2003.

Montgomery: The River City, history, River City Publishing, 2002.

The Long Journey, a novel, River City Publishing, 2002.

My Heart is in the Earth: True Stories of Alabama and Mexico, ISBN 1-57966-013-4, River City Publishing, 2001.

Alabama: A State of Mind, Community Communications and the Business Council of Alabama, 2000.

Beyond the Night: A Remembrance, River City Publishing, 1999.

Alabama: Portrait of a State, Black Belt Press, 1998.

Montgomery: The Biography of a City, The Advertiser Company, 1993.

Tombigbee and Other Stories, fiction, Sycamore Press, 1991.

Montgomery: Center Stage of the South, Windsor Publications, 1990.

Alabama On My Mind, a collection of articles, ISBN 0-944404-00-6, Sycamore Press, 1986.

Flying High: Inside Big-Time Drug Smuggling, Dodd Mead, 1984.

Elephants in the Cottonfields: Ronald Reagan and the New Republican South, Macmillan, 1981.

Watch Out for George Wallace, a biography, ISBN 0-13-945790-9, Prentice-Hall, 1976.

Hard Travelin’, a novel, Touchstone, 1973.

The Making of a Hero: Lt. William L. Calley and the My Lai Massacre, Touchstone, 1971.

The Golfer, a novel, J.B. Lippincott, 1968; paperback, Sycamore Press, 1991.

References

• Dixon, Joyce. My Heart Is in the Earth: An interview with author Wayne Greenhaw. Retrieved from:

www.southernscribe.com/zine/culture/Greenhaw_Wayne.htm

• Harold Wayne Greenhaw Papers at Auburn University Montgomery Library

http://aumnicat.aum.edu/html/departments/collection/harold.htm

• www.waynegreenhaw.com