If you missed Reverend Bob Graetz reading from and signing his new book A White Preacher’s Message on Race and Reconciliation, you missed a wonderful, moving experience. Reverend Graetz spoke to a full house at the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture at Alabama State University, recounting his experiences at the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. He also recalled the times that the lives of he and his family were threatened while they lived in Montgomery, discussed what he’s learned about race relations and white priviledge, and offered a touching tribute to his wife Jeannie; their fifty-fifth wedding anniversary is coming up soon.

However, if you missed Reverend Graetz last night, you can still catch a video interview with him from WSFA TV in Montgomery; just follow the link and search for keyword: Graetz. Reverend Graetz will also sign copies of his book at an open house at the Immanuel Presbyterian Church on August 6.

A White Preacher’s Message is available for immediate shipping from NewSouth Books (order online or call toll-free (866) 639-7688), or for pre-order from Amazon.com, or at your favorite local or online book retailer.

Reverend Bob Graetz’s newest column in the Montgomery Advertiser talks about his just-released book, A White Preacher’s Message on Race and Reconciliation, and how Bob and his wife Jeannie wrote the book in part to recognize some of the less well-known participants in the Civil Rights movement. From the column:

The real heroes of the Civil Rights Movement are not the ones whose names are permanently implanted in our national memory, as important as those people were. The real heroes were the thousands of people whose names will never be known and whose actions will never be celebrated. In Montgomery it was the 50,000 black people who walked and shared rides for more than a year, facing threats of violence, arrest and economic retaliation, to free themselves from oppression.

Rev. Graetz will sign copies of A White Preacher’s Message on Thursday, July 27, from 5:30 to 7:30 PM at the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture on the Alabama State University campus. He will also sign copies at the Immanuel Presbyterian Church on August 6, at an open house to celebrate the Graetz’s fifty-fifth wedding anniversary.

A White Preacher’s Message is available for immediate shipping from NewSouth Books (order online or call toll-free (866) 639-7688), or for pre-order from Amazon.com, or at your favorite local or online book retailer.

Summer’s here, and the whole country’s certainly feeling the heat! So what’s the deal with USA Today saying there’s no hot beach books this summer? Didn’t they read the Charlotte Observer review of Mark Ethridge’s Grievances, which called the mystery novel “a must for your beach bag”? And Windows a Bookshop in Louisiana certainly has plenty to read, as they list Tony Dunbar’s Tubby Meets Katrina among the new books by their favorite authors that summer brought. So if you’re headed out to the beach, don’t forget these great titles from NewSouth–they may not cool you off, but they’ll definitely keep your mind off the heat!

Clayton Sullivan, author of Why Beulah Shot Her Pistol Inside the Baptist Church, has launched a new website that details both Beulah and Sullivan’s many other incisive, scholarly religious books. Visit Clayton Sullivan and learn more about his books at www.claytonsullivan.com.

Why Beulah Shot Her Pistol tells the story of Beulah Buchanan, raised in the Primitive Baptist Church, who at the age of sixteen marries the much older deacon Ralph Rainey to escape from her oppressive parents, jumping from the frying pan into the fire. When she embarasses her husband by not cooking enough food for a ravenous visiting revival preacher, Ralph ���chastises��� Beulah with his belt–and her revenge creates a Southern Gothic tale that is at times both tragic and hilarious. Beulah is available from NewSouth Books, Amazon.com, and your favorite local or online book retailer.

Sullivan’s newest book, Rescuing Sex from the Christians, questions why the Christian church has had difficulty with the idea of sex throughout its history. As he writes, “Sullivan tackles controversial subjects such as masturbation, homosexuality, adultery, and prostitution and demonstrates how the Christian idea of sexuality has vilified these practices, fostering guilt about the human body and its activities throughout the history of western culture.” Rescuing Sex from the Christians is also available from Amazon.com, or other fine booksellers.

NewSouth Books is pleased to announce the publication and release of Reverend Robert Graetz’s A White Preacher’s Message on Race and Reconciliation. A White Preacher’s Message details Rev. Graetz’s life as the young white pastor of a black Lutheran Church in Montgomery, where he and his wife were among the few whites who supported the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

A White Preacher’s Message is available for immediate shipping from NewSouth Books (order online or call toll-free (866) 639-7688), or for pre-order from Amazon.com, or your favorite local or online book retailer.

Rev. Graetz will sign copies of A White Preacher’s Message on Thursday, July 27, from 5:30 to 7:30 PM at the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture on the Alabama State University campus. See an article about the signing in today’s Montgomery Advertiser.

Don Noble of Alabama Public Radio has published an audio review of NewSouth’s Hugo Black of Alabama: How His Roots and Early Career Shaped the Great Champion of the Constitution, by Steve Suitts. Earlier this year, Suitts lectures on “Hugo Black’s Constitution” at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

Listen to Don Noble’s review at the following link.

Hugo Black of Alabama is available directly from NewSouth Books, Amazon.com, or your favorite local or online book retailer. Learn more about Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black at hugoblack.com.

The Fine Arts Theatre in Los Angeles will screen Voices of Civil Rights, a documentary by Jeffrey Tuchman, on July 15 at 7:00 PM; tickets are $7.00. The film follows a group of journalists on a 70-day bus ride through country, interviewing people about the civil rights movement. The stories that the journalists collected are now archived at the Library of Congress. The documentary will also air Saturday, February 12 at 8:00 PM on the History Channel.

The House voted yesterday to renew the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prevented votes from having to pay or take tests in order to qualify to vote. You can learn more about the Voting Rights Act from the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Right Division website.

The Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio has praised Grievances as an “intriguing novel.” They continue:

Ethridge precisely conveys the grunt side of newspaper work — the crunching boredom of sifting through piles of public records as the deadline clock ticks away. He shows various versions of the story as the two reporters polish it, and their disappointment as it suffers delays caused by conflicting information.

The book’s supporting characters are beautifully drawn. The aptly named Reverend Grace, the dignified, snuff-dipping housemaid Mary Pell, even the pathetic, aging Klansmen — each is elevated above “type” by Ethridge’s careful observation.

NewSouth is also pleased to announce that you can now email author Mark Ethridge with questions or comments about Grievances. Follow this link to send a message to Mark, and to learn more about the book!

Grievances is available directly from NewSouth Books, Amazon, or your favorite local or online book retailer.

On July 17, the NAACP will honor civil rights attorney Fred Gray, NewSouth author of Bus Ride for Justice, with the William Robert Ming Advocacy Award for his long-standing civil rights contributions.

Gray, born in Montgomery, Alabama, grew up to become one of only two black lawyers in Montgomery in the 1950s. When his friend Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 for violating the segregated seating ordinance on a Montgomery bus, twenty-six-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr., was chosen to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and twenty-four-year-old Fred Gray became his–and the movement���s–lawyer. Gray���s legal victory in the federal courts ended the boycott 381 days later. Over the four decades since, Gray has won scores of civil rights cases in education, voting rights, transportation, health, and other areas. He represented the Freedom Riders, the Selma-to-Montgomery marchers, the victims of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, and many more.

Gray spoke about the NAACP’s award, to be presented in Washington, DC, in a Montgomery Advertiser article earlier last week: “I became a lawyer to do the kind of work the NAACP did, and it’s a great honor to receive this award,” he said. “They have been with me throughout my entire career and given me the opportunity to defend them so they could be able to do business in this state.”

Fred Gray chronicled his civil rights career in his gripping memoir Bus Ride for Justice; he has also chronicled his work with victims of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Both of these books are available directly from NewSouth, from Amazon.com or from your favorite local or online book retailer. Limited signed copies of Bus Ride for Justice are also available from the NewSouth Bookstore, toll-free (866) 639-7688.

The New York Times Book Review published a feature on Sunday called “Hell and High Water,” looking at two non-fiction accounts of the Hurricane Katrina devistation. The first, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Co by historian Douglas Brinkley, showcases interviews with New Orleans and Southern residents who weathered the storm, weighing in at over 700 pages. The second, Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City written by New Orleans newspaper editor Jed Horne, is a more ground-level look at New Orleans both before and after the hurricane. Both of these books are available for order at a discount rate from the NewSouth Bookstore, (866) 639-7688.

Of course, NewSouth also recommends the first work of fiction set during the storm, Tubby Meets Katrina, by New Orleans attorney Tony Dunbar. Tubby Meets Katrina has already been hailed by a number of reviewers, and Library Journal called Tony Dunbar’s portrayal of New Orleans “remarkable.” Tubby Meets Katrina is available directly from NewSouth Books, Amazon, or your local or online book retailer.