“Essentially, all expression has two noble intentions: to try to say what is unsayable and to bear witness to what is.”
-Mark Nepo
Author and Journalist
A former educator, publicist and editor, Lanier Isom is an author and journalist living in her hometown, Birmingham, Alabama. She wrote, Grace and Grit: How I Won My Fight at Goodyear and Beyond, the life story of Alabama native Lilly Ledbetter, the namesake of President Obama’s first piece of legislation, The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. The film had its World premiere at the 2024 Hamptons International Film Festival. LILLY will be released in theaters May 9th, 2025. Isom’s articles, editorials, and essays have been featured in numerous publications, including Al Jazeera, The Lily, LA Times, Huffington Post, Salvation South and The Bitter Southerner. She's a frequent contributor to Inside Climate News and al.com. She’s also the recipient of the Alabama Library Association Nonfiction Award and a 2023 Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. She has recently finished a memoir about place, the legacy of race in the South, a generation of silenced women, and the inexorable pull of family in home. For the past four years, she has worked with a group of survivors and CHILD US Advocacy to pass statute of limitation reform legislation in Alabama. Isom is a cum laude graduate from Tulane University where she ran long distance, which taught her the perseverance needed for a justice seeker in the marathon for equality. You can find her on most social media platforms @lanierisom.
Lilly Movie
LILLY is a powerful dramatic film starring Patricia Clarkson, John Benjamin Hickey and Thomas Sadoski and directed by Rachel Feldman. Based on the remarkable true story of working-class hero, Lilly Ledbetter, a hard-working Alabama tire factory supervisor whose singular goal is to lift her family into the middle class. Having grown up in poverty, she endures a work environment plagued by pervasive harassment for the sake of the best paycheck in the county. As retirement approaches, Lilly discovers that the system has been cheating her, paying her close to half of what the men with the same jobs are earning. Outraged, Lilly fights this injustice to the Supreme Court, the corridors of Congress and eventually The White House all while powerful forces try to shut her down. LILLY follows the transformation of an ordinary citizen into the face of an issue, illuminating the impact a single, courageous person can have.
Blue Harbor Entertainment will release LILLY exclusively in theatres on May 9..
Excerpt from lillymovie.com
Remembering Lilly
When I wrote Lilly’s memoir, I wanted to answer the question why Lilly when unfair pay for women is a universal problem. Lilly grew up in a house without running water or electricity and had only a high school education. As a child, she picked cotton, backbreaking labor she hated. Despite the challenges she faced growing up in the pre-civil rights South, she never let a setback overcome her hopes and dreams.
Through her strength of character, love for her family, and faith in justice, Lilly persevered and advocated for fair pay for all women in the workplace. Born an ordinary woman, Lilly will stand throughout history as an extraordinary champion for equal pay for equal work. Everything Lilly did was for the good of her family, and everything she stood for was for the good of all families.