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Southern Literary Trail Celebrates W. B. Huie Centennial

Posted: Nov 14, 2010

Hartselle, Alabama, native and best selling novelist William Bradford Huie would have celebrated his 100th birthday yesterday, November 13, 2010. To commemorate the W. B. Huie Centennial, events will take place along the Alabama portion of the Southern Literary Trail from Tuscaloosa to Huie's hometown of Hartselle. The celebration will culminate in February of 2011 in Hartselle, Alabama, and will feature award winning journalist Hank Klibanoff.

William Bradford Huie, who was graduated from The University of Alabama in 1930. is the author of over 20 works of fiction and non-fiction, 14 of which were best sellers. Huie was known primarily as an investigative journalist, and his books span some of the 20th century's most defining moments from the Great Depression to the struggle for civil rights. A number of his books such as Mud on the Stars (Wild River), The Revolt of Mamie Stover, The Execution of Private Slovik, The Americanization of Emily, The Outsider (the story of Ira Hayes) and The Klansman were made into feature films.

I had the great pleasure of meeting William Bradford Huie in the spring of 1984 when he came to Athens State University as a featured speaker for the Sigma Tau Delta Regional Conference. I found Huie to be both a scholar and a gentleman, always gracious and exceedingly charming. Unfortunately, W. B. Huie has not always fared well at the hands of critics. During his lifetime he was criticized for paying for stories (a "no no" for journalists), but in spite of the so-called "checkbook journalism," he was widely lauded for his relentless pursuit of the truth.

The WBH @100 celebration was kicked off this past week at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.  Events included the opening of the exhibit The Many Facets of William Bradford Huie, followed by a reception and remarks by Huie's wife Martha Huie and historian Wayne Greenhaw at the Hooie Library, and a screening of the 1960 film Wild River at the Bama Theatre.

2010 not only marks William Bradford Huie’s 100th birthday, but it also marks the 50th anniversary of the film Wild River, which was directed by Elia Kazan and based on Huie’s first novel, the semi-autobiographical, Mud on the Stars. In his dedication of Mud On the Stars Huie wrote "To the Roosevelt generation of Americans; to the modern children of confusion; to the fellows who, at the end of an era of cynicism, were forced suddenly to stand in their tracks and die for the proposition that men are noble creatures, worthy to be free."

Wild River, starring Montgomery Clift and Lee Remick. is now available on DVD for the first time. At the screening of Wild River this past Wednesday in Tuscaloosa, Dr. Don Noble had the following to say regarding Huie's first novel and the 1960 film:
"He was one of them [the people of Alabama] and as a boy thought the same way they did. He believed, as valedictorian of Hartselle High, that the world was a fair and level playing field, the race went to the swift, and the government that governs at a great distance, and governs least and, ideally, governs not at all, governs best. The worst government of all then, is the one that seizes your property by eminent domain, builds a dam, and floods your ancestral home.

"But Huie and his hero, Peter Garth Lafavor of Garth Island—there really is a Garth Slough in the Tennessee River north of Decatur—are both intelligent men. They observe closely; they learn; they are flexible. Huie and his hero realize that sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and the dam must be built and Garth Island flooded to provide electric power and a better, safer life for millions of ordinary people."

W. B. Huie died in Guntersville, Alabama, on November 20, 1986. When he died, Huie was working on his autobiography, a memoir he sometimes called Recollections of a Loner.

-----Penne J. Laubenthal
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     Southern Literature: Roots and Branches

   

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