The Gazebo Gazette
PASS CHRISTIAN (GG) — What if everyone in Pass Christian read the same book and then joined together to talk about it? That is the idea behind One Book, One Pass. The 2025 selected author is Imani Perry and the book selection is South To America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon Line to Understand the Soul of America, which received the 2022 National Book Award for non-fiction.
Over the next several months, the community is encouraged to read the book and engage in book discussions, panel discussions, and other programs that will culminate in the author presentation by Professor Perry on Thursday, October 16th at 6:00pm at the Randolph Center in Pass Christian (315 Clark Avenue).
Professor Perry earned her Ph.D. in American Studies from Harvard University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an LLM from Georgetown University Law Center and a BA from Yale College in Literature and American Studies. Perry is appointed jointly as Professor in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, and in African and African American Studies at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2023. Professor Perry is the distinguished author of eight highly acclaimed books. In addition to our selected book, these include Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry; May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem; Breathe: A Letter To My Sons; and Black in Blues: How A Color Tells the Story of My People.
The One Book One Pass selection, South to America, is described by Isabel Wilkerson (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration) as “An elegant meditation on the complexities of the American South – and thus of America – by an esteemed daughter of the South and one of the great intellectuals of our time.”
Copies of South To America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon Line To Understand the Soul of America are available for check out at the Pass Christian Library or for purchase at Pass Christian Books. Please call the library (228-452-4596) or email passchristianlibrary@gmail.com if you have any questions or need further information. You can follow the One Book One Pass Program on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100067992191047)
