
Author Book Talk & Wine Reception: "Tell It True"
Wed, Jun 19
|Private Residence
Join us at a beautiful home overlooking Brushy Face for a cocktail reception, book signing and discussion of John Pruitt’s novel of historical fiction, Tell It True.


Time & Location
Jun 19, 2024, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Private Residence
About the Event
Join us at a beautiful home overlooking Brushy Face for a cocktail reception, book signing and discussion of John Pruitt’s novel of historical fiction, Tell It True. Drawing on his experience as a reporter covering the murder of an African American serviceman by Klansmen on a rural road in Georgia in 1964, Pruitt weaves his story around journalists who cover the murder, the lawmen who must solve it, the civil rights leaders who capitalize upon it, the politicians who exploit it, and the Atlanta magnate who fears its impact on the New South image he desperately wants to protect. TV news cameraman Gil Matthews and AP reporter Mindy Williams team up to follow the twists and turns of the investigation as rural, state and federal lawmen clash, a civil rights leader fends off a black power challenger, and voters take sides in a governor’s race pitting virulent racist Roscoe Pike against moderate underdog Harrison Parker. The book focuses on the challenges faced by journalists as they covered a societal revolution and brought the dramatic and sometimes violent scenes to television screens around the world night after night. Taking us to a time when the future of the South hung in the balance, readers will no doubt recognize that many of those same troubles are still with us today. “There were many momentous stories I covered during my career,” says Pruitt, “but none equaled the magnitude of the struggles for racial equality in the South.”