Author and journalist Wayne Greenhaw died on Tuesday from complications following recent heart surgery. He was 71.
Greenhaw wrote 22 books, including his two most recent titles, published by Lawrence Hill Books: The Thunder of Angels: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People Who Broke the Back of Jim Crow and Fighting the Devil in Dixie: How Civil Rights Activists Took on the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama.
At his death, he was working on a novel, The Intruder, a World War II story set to be published next year, according to the Birmingham News. The paper said he also had an offer to write a novel based on his long friendship with Harper Lee.
Greenhaw reported on Alabama state government for nearly 17 years, for the Alabama Journal and the Montgomery Advertiser, and interviewed governors, civil rights leaders and Klansman and published stories in national magazines and publications like the New York Times. He also served as Alabama's tourism director and was on the board of the Alabama Humanities Foundation. Among his honors, Wayne was presented the Harper Lee Award as Alabama's distinguished writer in 2006.
Rick Bragg told the News that Greenhaw "not only saw history, he lived it. He was passionate about the state, he was angry about wrongdoings and injustices, and he was strongly proud of people who stood up to those injustices."