Submitted by jnaylor_6346 on
Please join us as we welcome
SUZANNE CRAIG ROBERTSON
in conversation with
BILL HALTOM
on
SATURDAY, MAY 6
at
2:00 PM
to celebrate the release of Suzanne's new book
HE CALLED ME SISTER: A TRUE STORY OF FINDING HUMANITY ON DEATH ROW
**Can't attend an event? Don't miss out on signed copies! You can order autographed books for any of our in-person author events by clicking the "Add to Cart" button below and leaving your personalization instructions in the comments at checkout! Your books will be signed and ready for pickup or shipping the day after the event.**
ABOUT THE BOOK:
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 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 were forged despite the difficult circumstances, and how Cecil ended up ministering more to Suzanne's family than they did to him. The story details how Cecil maintained inexplicable joy and hope despite the tragic events of his life and how Suzanne, Alan, and their two daughters opened their hearts to a man convicted of murder. Cecil Johnson was executed Dec. 2, 2009.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Suzanne Craig Robertson is the author of HE CALLED ME SISTER: A TRUE STORY OF FINDING HUMANITY ON DEATH ROW (Morehouse Publishing, 2023). She has served as the director of communications of the Tennessee Bar Association and is a former editor of the Tennessee Bar Journal, where, for more than three decades, she covered stories at the intersection of law and society. She has a B.S. from the University of Tennessee and M.A. from Spalding University in Louisville. She lives in Nashville, 20 minutes and worlds away from Riverbend Maximum Security Prison.
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER:
Bill Haltom is an award-winning newspaper columnist with the Tennessee USA Today Network, and the author of nine books ranging in topics from seersucker to civility.
