10/06/2026
We're looking forward to tonight's Sidney's Salon, our last of the season, at Longleaf Distillery with Lonnae O'Neal, author of "Bibb Country: Unearthing My Family Secrets of Land, Legacy—and Lettuce." We'll start with a reception at 5:30 and the presentation will begin at 6:00.
"Bibb Country" follows O’Neal back in time as she pieces together generations of her family history against the sweep of American history, unearthing hidden triumphs, traumas, and a specialty strain of lettuce along the way.
Her fourth great-grandmother, Keziah, was enslaved by the Kentucky Bibb family, who developed the Bibb lettuce strain. Major Richard Bibb’s will freed Keziah and dozens of other Black Bibbs decades before the Civil War, leaving them with a powerful, complicated legacy.
A mix of memoir, food history, and cultural critique, "Bibb Country" explores what it means to be descended, through enslavement, from a family whose wealth and power helped shape a nation, and confronts the history that echoes through generations of one family's story.
O'Neal's book is pictured here on display at Bear’s Books. Bear's Books is on site at each Salon to sell books for our authors, and they stock our Salon books in their store--just in case you missed your opportunity to buy one at the event. Thank you to Margaret and her team for their partnership and support!
