Friends of UW-Madison Library host award-winning author Tyson

Tim Tyson, author and former associate professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, will return to campus on Thursday, Sept. 7, to discuss his latest award-winning book, “Blood Done Sign My Name,” at 4:30 p.m. in 126 Memorial Library. The lecture is hosted by the Friends of the UW–Madison Library.

“Blood Done Sign My Name,” winner of multiple awards, including finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, details the events that followed the murder of a young black Vietnam War veteran by a white local businessman in the spring of 1970 in Tyson’s hometown of Oxford, N.C.

The book weaves autobiography — Tyson’s father was the town’s anti-segregationist Methodist minister — with historical analysis. A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel review said, “If you want to read only one book to understand the uniquely American struggle for racial equality and the swirls of emotion around it, this is it,” while Publisher’s Weekly said, “Tyson’s avoidance of stereotypes and simple answers brings a shameful recent era in our country’s history to vivid life. This book deserves the largest possible audience.”

Tyson, professor of American Christianity and southern culture and senior research scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, has written and taught extensively on the history of black freedom movements in the 20th century South. His first book, “Democracy Betrayed: the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and its Legacy,” co-edited with David S. Cecelski, won the 1999 Outstanding Book Award from The Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America. His second book, “Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power,” won the James Rawley Prize and the Frederick Jackson Turner Award both in 2000 from the Organization of American Historians.

Tyson earned a Ph.D. from Duke University and B.A. from Emory University. He taught at UW–Madison from 1994-2006.

The Friends of the UW–Madison Library, one of the oldest university library friends groups in the nation, supports the continuing excellence of the UW–Madison libraries, one of the country’s largest research library systems.