W. Jason Miller | Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

ABOUT THE EVENT

Tickets include a copy of Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, guaranteed entry to the event, and a seat in the reserved section. W. Jason Miller will be in conversation with Jaki Shelton Green and will sign books after the program. The program will be introduced by David Menconi.

All live author events are subject to change. More information about our events can be found at quailridgebooks.com/eventsfaq.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The story behind the Priestess and the Poet

On March 24, 1965, Nina Simone performed at a rally for twenty-five thousand people on the last night of the Selma to Montgomery civil rights march. Though luminaries like Martin Luther King Jr., Mahalia Jackson, and Dick Gregory were in attendance, it was Langston Hughes, celebrated poet and leader of the Harlem Renaissance, who was the singer’s closest confidant and supporter. They had one of the most important—yet unheralded—friendships of the Black Power era.

Simone’s performance on that Montgomery night catapulted her into a lead role in the civil rights movement, with Hughes as her guide. In Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, W. Jason Miller offers a riveting history of how their relationship helped spark the birth of Black Power—indeed, the phrase itself, made famous by Stokely Carmichael, was a quote from collaborative lyrics by the two. Hughes gave Simone the fuel to be one of the most politically charged artists of the era, while Simone offered Hughes a way to carry his influence into pop music and shape a national movement. Drawing on new firsthand accounts, Miller takes readers inside one of the most powerful friendships in music and civil rights history.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

W. JASON MILLER is a Distinguished Professor of English at NC State University and a cultural historian whose work uncovers hidden connections among Langston Hughes, Martin Luther King Jr., Nina Simone, and the transformative movements of the twentieth century. A National Humanities Center Fellow, he has spent two decades combining scholarship, archival research, and public storytelling.

His books include Langston Hughes and American Lynching Culture (2011), Origins of the Dream: Hughes’s Poetry and King’s Rhetoric (2015), and Langston Hughes (2020). His research led to the discovery of audio of King delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, nine months before the March on Washington—a discovery that received international media attention.

Miller’s documentary and digital projects include Origin of the Dream and King and the Klan. His scholarship and public work have been widely featured in media including by ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, BBC, NPR, The Washington Post, and The Guardian.

JAKI SHELTON GREEN, ninth Poet Laureate of North Carolina is the first African American and third woman to be appointed as the North Carolina Poet Laureate. She is a 2019 Academy of American Poet Laureate Fellow, 2014 NC Literary Hall of Fame Inductee, 2009 NC Piedmont Laureate appointment, 2003 recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature. Jaki Shelton Green teaches Documentary Poetry at Duke University Center for Documentary Studies and was appointed the 2021 Frank B. Hanes Writer in Residence at UNC Chapel Hill. Additionally, she received the George School Outstanding Alumni Award in 2021.

DAVID MENCONI, the 2019 North Carolina Piedmont Laureate, was a staff writer at the Raleigh News & Observer for 28 years. He has also written for Rolling Stone, Billboard, Spin and the New York Times. He is also the author of Oh, Didn't They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music.