MURFREESBORO, TN - Author Rachel Louise Martin, PhD, will speak at the Friends of Linebaugh Library’s Author Luncheon on January 27 from 11:00-1:00 at The Maple Room at 415 N. Maple Street. Dr. Martin is a historian and writer whose work has appeared in outlets like The Atlantic and Oxford American. The author of Hot, Hot Chicken, a cultural history of Nashville hot chicken, and A Most Tolerant Little Town, the forgotten story of the first school to attempt court-mandated desegregation in Clinton, Tennessee in the wake of Brown v. Board, she is especially interested by the politics of memory and by the power of stories to illuminate why injustice persists in America today. She grew up in Murfreesboro and now lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

A Most Tolerant Little Town was selected as a New York Times Editors' Choice Book, a New York Times Nonfiction Book to Read This Summer (2023), a New Yorker Best Books of 2023, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution Southern Book to Read this Summer (2023), and a BookPage Most Anticipated Book of 2023. Publishers Weekly said. “Martin, who collected oral histories for 18 years, strikes an expert balance between the big picture and intimate profiles of the families involved. The result is a vivid snapshot of the civil rights–era South.”

The Maple Room is in the Murfreesboro Housing Authority building at 415 N. Maple Street. The entrance is located at the north end of the building under an awning. Parking is available at the rear of the building.

Members can purchase discounted tickets for the luncheon for $15 with a paid membership or $25 without membership or for non-member guests. This can be done at the circulation desk at Linebaugh Library or can be mailed to Friends of Linebaugh Library, P.O. Box 2903, Murfreesboro, TN 37133-2903. Reservations must be made and paid for by January 15. Payments will not be accepted at the door.

Friends of Linebaugh Library is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization formed in 1981 to promote the library and its activities through exhibits, special programming, and library materials beyond the regular resources of the library. The Friends supports Linebaugh Library, Myrtle Glanton Lord Library at Patterson Park, and the Technology Engagement Center.