Killers of the Dream

A southern white writer, educator, and activist, Lillian Smith (1897-1966) spoke out all her life against injustice. In the Killers of the Dream (1949), her most influential book, she draws on memories of her childhood to describe the psychological and moral cost of the powerful, contradictory rules about sin, sex, and segregation-the intricate system of taboos-that undergirded Southern society.