r author: Walker is a beloved professor and superstar in the education academy. She has won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in education, has consulted for newspapers including USA Today, New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution. She has been featured in webcasts, radio interviews, and television, including the PBS documentary, SCHOOL.

High-profile endorsements: blurbs expected from several prominent figures in her networks and friends of Dr. Tate, including: John Lewis, President Jimmy Carter, Charles Ogletree, Lisa Delpit, and Angela Davis, among others.

Popular genre: Several contemporary books on black southern experiences told through personal narratives or journeys are among recent best sellers: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Twelve Years a Slave, and The Warmth of Other Suns.

Appealing backstory: The linchpin of this group of unsung activists was Horace Tate, the first African American to run for mayor in Atlanta, who in a dramatic episode at the end of his life entrusted Walker with exclusive access to a large, untouched archive of Georgia's black educational association. Most records from similar associations and from segregated black schools throughout the South were "lost" or destroyed at the dawn of school desegregation.