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.

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.

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.

NPR had an important story on poverty in America yesterday, focused around Robert Coles and Al Clayton’s book Still Hungry in America, which published photographs of the poor and hungry in the 1960s South. For their program, NPR reporter Michele Norris goes with Clayton back to Belzoni, Mississipi, “one of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states in the United States,” to see how conditions have improved — or not — since Clayton was there. As Clayton says in the NPR transcript, “It was so graphic with the small folks. The face of a hungry child or their demeanor just really prints on me. It’s unforgettable.”

Still Hungry in America is out of print, but a very few used copies are available from the NewSouth Bookstore, toll free (866) 639-7688.

The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance has announced the 2006 SIBA Book Award winners. The award celebrates the best of southern literature, as picked by independent booksellers throughout the South (like the NewSouth Bookstore).

The winners are:

FICTION: Gods in Alabama, by Joshilyn Jackson

���Gods in Alabama is an intriguing, multi-layered mystery wrapped up in a Southern package. Don’t miss this one!��� Tammy R. Lynn, The Book Basket, Wetumpka, AL

POETRY: What Travels With Us, by Darnell Arnoult

���Darnell Arnoult gathers the nourishment for the soul in her poetry. She echoes the past into our future so we know “the place” that we are part of. Immerse yourself in this poetry and wash away all that belongs not to you.��� Emoke B’Racz, Malaprops Bookstore & Cafe, Asheville, NC

COOKBOOK: Being Dead is No Excuse, by Gayden Metcalfe & Charlotte Hays

“Oh. My. God. If a funeral isn’t the time for some good solid southern humor, I don’t know what is. These two women have written a funny and smart book about how we act down South when we know the neighbors are watching. Plus recipes! It’s to die for!” Elisabeth Grant-Gibson, Windows a bookshop, Monroe, LA

NONFICTION: Marley & Me, by John Grogan

���An incredible tale of canine connection. Grogan will make you laugh, make you cry, and help you to understand that “man’s best friend”, like all good friends, needs to be appreciated — warts and all. Even though you know how the book must end, you are in for an incredible journey.��� Janet Bollum, The Muse Bookshop, Deland, FL

CHILDRENS: Rosa, by Nikki Giovanni

���The wonderful Nikki Giovanni brings to life the story of Rosa Parks, an ordinary woman who made a decision that sparked the Montgomery bus boycott and accelerated the struggle for Civil Rights in America. Bryan Collier’s realistic yet luminous art lends a dream quality to this beautiful book.��� Elisabeth Grant-Gibson, Windows a bookshop, Monroe LA

All of these books are available for order from the NewSouth Bookstore, toll-free (866) 639-7688. For more information about SIBA, go to www.sibaweb.com.

The NewSouth Bookstore was pleased to greet college students from author and professor Raymond Arsenault’s civil rights class on Wednesday. The students are on a tour of civil rights landmarks, with stops in Albany, Georgia; Nashville, Birmingham, and Montgomery.

In Montgomery, the students travelled with historian Dr. J. Mills Thornton and NewSouth’s own Randall Williams, visiting such sights as the Greyhound station where the Freedom Riders arrived, and the spot where Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat, before stopping at the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture at Alabama State University, and dining with civil rights leader (and NewSouth author) Reverend Robert Graetz and his wife, Jeannie.

At the NewSouth Bookstore, the students beat the heat with cold drinks and perused our wide used books selection, purchasing a variety of titles, from Representative John Lewis’s civil rights memoir Walking with the Wind to the collected stories of Jack London. Ray Arsenault was nice enough to sign copies of his new book Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, now available from our store.