Cover reveal!

Plus, stand with Alamance County kids and educators

Dear Frog Troublers, I am very proud and excited to share…

The brilliant playwright, musician, actor, and activist Sylvester Allen Jr. and I have worked together on this book for more than four years, and I am so happy to say that it will be published on January 27, 2026 by Ferris and Ferris/UNC Press.

The book is about Wyatt Outlaw, a hero to us and to others, especially in Alamance County, where Wyatt lived for most of his life, from around 1820 to 1870. Wyatt Outlaw was the first Black town commissioner and one of the first Black constables of Graham, North Carolina. He served in these roles during Reconstruction, a time of new freedom and growing prosperity and political power for Black people. He was a business owner, a Union League leader, a father, a son. He was patriotic, and he taught and encouraged people to vote through his Union League leadership. He purchased land for a church and school, just down the street from his home and workshop, a short walk from the courthouse where he served as commissioner.

He worked to protect his town and his family from the Ku Klux Klan, also known as the White Brotherhood, whose numerous and powerful local members led violent nightly attacks on Black families and those who aligned with the rights of Black people to try to scare them away from voting or expressing any of their rights as citizens. So brutal were these Klan attacks that many Black people began sleeping in the woods so they wouldn’t be found and killed.

Wyatt did not hide, but encouraged Black people to “be as industrious as possible” and “allow law enforcement to do its job.” Because of his bravery, resistance, and leadership he was kidnapped from his home in front of his mother and children, and lynched by the Klan next to the county courthouse, the seat and symbol of power and the law. His murder caused more lynchings and attacks on people who tried to bring his killers to justice. The Klan’s lawlessness led to a declaration of insurrection, a “war” against the Klan, and white supremacist pushback that resulted in the first impeachment and removal of a sitting U.S. governor. That’s the governor’s signature, above, on Wyatt’s Union League commission, granted to him in Raleigh on July 5, 1867.

There’s much more to the story, which takes our readers into the present day where insurrection, white supremacy, and lawlessness still threaten the lives and well-being of Black people and those who want to work together in a fair, just, multiracial democracy. Sylvester and I wrote this book because we want that, very much, and because we felt, at crucial points in our lives, that we were missing this story. Neither one of us learned much at all about Reconstruction in school (it’s still the least-taught period in American history). Sylvester grew up in Graham, regularly passing the Confederate monument that still stands in front of the historic courthouse, and did not have any idea about the life of a Black leader who was assassinated just feet from the courthouse steps. I taught American literature at a high school in Alamance County, and never knew that a man named Wyatt Outlaw, and the drama of his life, inspired not one but two Reconstruction era novels, Albion Tourgée’s Bricks without Straw and A Fool’s Errand.

We wanted a whole book about Wyatt’s life, and the lives of some of his friends and neighbors, that also contextualized the time period and how it’s represented (and misrepresented). We wanted to show how that misrepresentation—the Lost Cause narrative so many of us grew up with, and still suffer under—led to the 2020 I Am Change Legacy March to the Polls, where Sylvester, Bea, and I—along with more than two hundred other peaceful marchers of all ages—were violently pepper-fogged by police.

Reading the book, you’ll also find out…

-How Wyatt’s great-grandson, the epidemiologist Dr. Samuel Merritt, first learned about his historic ancestor.

-What’s the connection between Wyatt Outlaw and North Carolina poet laureate Jaki Shelton Green?

-What Wyatt’s life means to local activists, and why 2021’s violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol felt so infuriatingly familiar.

-How other places in the South, like Charlotte County, Virginia, are working to retell the stories of their Reconstruction era Black leaders, and how art of all kinds—plays, songs, paintings, comics—can help make sure the next generation won’t be bereft of the history we owe them.

-How local leaders, like Down Home organizer Ebony Pinnix and Down Home executive co-director Dreama Caldwell, are carrying on Wyatt’s legacy of justice, fairness, education, and voting rights—and how that vision and commitment led to big wins, even in the 2024 election.

We hope you’ll learn and get inspired by The Legend of Wyatt Outlaw, which Gene Nichol calls “a powerful and much-needed antidote to our long-accepted, and now invigorated, ignorance.” We hope you’ll share it with your book club, share it with your high school and middle school classrooms (we wrote it to be accessible, with photos, sidebars, guest authors, and more), invite us to come speak to your groups.

But first, you can actually help us out—a lot—by pre-ordering the book, either from this link (at UNC Press), or this one at Bookshop.org. Pre-orders are extremely helpful to publishers and writers because they tell booksellers that hey, this book has a lot of people who want to read it. We’re going to meet a lot of booksellers, in fact, at the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance conference in Atlanta this August, and it would be great to have a strong start to sales.

And if what you’ve read so far makes you itch to do something now, you can help educators and students in Alamance County by signing this petition telling Alamance County Commissioners NOT to cut the school budget by 19%, a devastating proposed loss of funds that would freeze teacher supplements, lay off crucial staffers, and harm kids. Alamance County students and teachers deserve full funding of their public schools.

If you’re local, you can also support the Alamance-Burlington School System by showing up in person tomorrow, June 2, at 5:30 at the historic courthouse in Graham. Public School advocates and Down Home members will be there to give public comment and cheer on a fully funded school budget. I hope to see you there!

But first, what do you think of the cover? Isn’t it beautiful? We’re so grateful to designer Lyndsay Starr for her vision, which we think does justice to the scope and story of our book. It’s great to see Wyatt Outlaw’s name in bold type.