You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The fascinating story of a friendship with an inmate on death row. It was a clash of race, privilege, and circumstance when Alan Robertson first signed up to visit Cecil Johnson on Death Row and offer spiritual guidance. The minister's wife Suzanne had no intention of being involved until a fateful chance phone call. That Cecil and she eventually became such close friends--a white middle-class woman and a Black man who grew up devoid of advantage--is a testament to perseverance, forgiveness, and love, but also to the notion that differences don't have to be barriers. This book recounts a fifteen-year friendship and how trust and compassion was forged despite the difficult circumstances. The story details how Cecil maintained inexplicable joy and hope despite the tragic events of his life and how Suzanne opened her heart and her family to a man convicted of murder. Cecil Johnson was executed Dec. 2, 2009.
Deeply poignant and astonishingly personal, this “moving story of a death in Tennessee” (Bill Moyers) shows hope can endure, grace can redeem, and humanity can exist—even in the darkest of places It was a clash of race, privilege, and circumstance when Alan Robertson first signed up through a church program to visit Cecil Johnson on Death Row, to offer friendship and compassion. Alan's wife Suzanne had no intention of being involved, but slowly, through phone calls and letters, she began to empathize and understand him. That Cecil and Suzanne eventually became such close friends—a white middle-class woman and a Black man who grew up devoid of advantage—is a testament to perseveranc...
Joe Ingle’s Too Close to the Flame is a heartbreakingly beautiful account of over four decades serving as a spiritual counselor, guide, and friend to the men and women on Death Row. “I had been working with the condemned since 1975—but never before had an execution affected me with this much power and confusion.” Throughout his forty-five years visiting death rows across the American South, Joe Ingle has learned, loved, and suffered intensely. In Too Close to the Flame, Ingle describes how the events of 2018–2020 finally exposed the deep wounds inflicted on his psyche by nearly half a century of enduring the state-sanctioned murder of friend after friend. As an advocate for the men...
None
Though Americans rarely appreciate it, federalism has profoundly shaped their nation’s past, present, and future. Federalism—the division of government authority between the national government and the states—affects the prosperity, security, and daily life of every American. In this nuanced and comprehensive overview, David Brian Robertson shows that past choices shape present circumstances, and that a deep understanding of American government, public policy, political processes, and society requires an understanding of the key steps in federalism’s evolution in American history. The most spectacular political conflicts in American history have been fought on the battlefield of fede...