Margaret anne barnes biography examples

ATLANTA - Margaret Anne Barnes, the author of books examining landmark events in Southern history, has died after a long battle with emphysema. She was 80.

The Decatur, Ga., woman died Thursday in Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, said her son, David Dukes of Decatur.

"She was the greatest mother in the world," Mr.

Dukes said. "She did everything in the world for me. She was just a really delightful person, everybody was charmed by her."

Mr. Dukes said his mother had a "real appreciation for Southern justice," which led her to write about events in Georgia and Alabama history.

Ms.

Barnes wrote the 1976 book Murder in Coweta County, which detailed the first time in Georgia history that testimony from two black field hands helped convict a prominent land baron for the murder of a sharecropper.

The book, which won an Edgar Allen Poe award, was made into a 1983 television movie starring Johnny Cash and Andy Griffith.

In 1987, she penned her autobiog