Complicated, insightful, instructive and moving--with devastating guilt over the cause of a cornerstone family member's death-a precocious, eleven year old tri-racial girl, comes of age in Morris Town, a small city in North Carolina in the early 1960s. Emilee shows us her sensitive and very personal perception as she witnesses and learns of history via the refined extended family members during the South's Civil Rights Movement led by her cousin, the NAACP President, Robert F. Williams-"RW"--in Morris Town, North Carolina. As Emilee tries to understand her layered world of death, difficult relationships and her own identity, her world heaves with rebel flag waving Ku Klux Klansmen's deliberate racial violent upheaval as their motorcades ride right pass her window; threats of hangings, shootings, brutality leveled against Freedom Riders, jute joints and Seagram's Seven drinkers, supernatural appearances of Witch, Old Woman and black cat. Disturbed by complex values, Emilee can't help but question the powers given to old superstitions, myths, fears, racial discrimination, hatred and violence. She strives to strengthen the maternal relationship with her mother torn by this inquisitiveness. Her personal journey reflects the transformation in thinking and change taking place in her and in the minds of the oppressed in her community and; her experiences seems humbled by the empathetic presents of a great teacher, the white and kind hearted Mrs. Isenhour, grits and butter, green apple pie, sweet water, flapjacks and Fudge squares from Woolworth's. The author, Connie Williams creates an astoundingly genuine voice for the central character in her novel, GREEN. There is much humor in this story and deep empathy and understanding of the wonderful central character-her intellectual and emotional journey. This story is moving beyond belief. Some of the writing reads like poetry. "I believe the work will do great things for young audiences who otherwise would know nothing about Robert F. Williams, the Civil Rights Activists." Minister John C. Williams, son of Robert F. Williams. "Good description, good imagery, and deliberate repetition. GREEN is an intriguing story." Frye Gaillard, author and winner of the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year Award."Williams creates Emilee's everyday world against the backdrop of the terrorizing racial violence of the Civil Rights Movement, set in Monroe, North Carolina in the 60s."Dr. J. Kiser, Professor, Graduate Studies, UNC at Charlotte.
About the Author: Connie Williams is a local figure known for her distinguished career as a skillful writer of prose and poetry. Until her retirement in 2014 she was an instructor of English Composition and Rhetoric at UNC at Charlotte. She also taught in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Union County School systems. Her inspirational, fictionalized autobiography, EMILY's BLUES, told how a young divorcee and mother of four went from poverty to a professional, and she was showcased in the "Dare to Dream Project", Z Smith Reynolds Foundation, 1990. She is the recipient of the Arts and Science Council Emerging Artist Award for her book. Her novel's stage play adaptation, entitled "Emily's Dilemma" received the Honorable Terry Sanford Award for Creativity Honorable Mention, and was performed at Livingston College at Salisbury by her students. Her dedication to arts education and outreach led Williams to create, the Emily's Blues Self-Actualization Project, and she volunteered her services to help deter high school dropouts. The EBSAP project received the Union County Community Arts Award for eight years at Piedmont High School where her book was read by students. She has volunteered her services to Healthy Mothers and Healthy Babies at the University of South Carolina, at Lancaster and the International Young Writers' Program in Charlotte. She has presented readings and facilitated writing workshops at: Barnes and Noble, the Charlotte Public Library, Imagine On, Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Nile Theater, and UNC, Center City campus at Charlotte; Spirit Square and the Afro American Cultural Center. Williams is a Christa McAuliffe Fellow finalist. She is contributing author to the following publications: HUNGRY FOR HOME "Mama Allie's Talking Dog..." Rogers, Novella Festival Press: 2003. THE NATIONAL LITERARY CIRCULAR: 1990. Original poetry, A SUN-FILLED DREAM, 1989. Classroom consultant: A HISTORY OF THE WORLD: Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 1988. Williams is the recipient of the 1996 North Carolina Arts Council Award; the National Endowment for the Arts Award for an eight weeks Fellowship at Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, California. She is a former Writing Fellow of the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, 1992. She is a graduate of Cal State University, Northridge (B.A. Degree) and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (M.Ed. Degree). She is a mother, grandmother, great-grand mother and wife. She resides with her husband in North Carolina.