The Peace Committee will host a book launch on Thursday, December 1, featuring two 2022 books by local authors that center on race.
Thursday at 7 p.m. at 655 S. Lorraine, at the Lorraine Avenue Mennonite Church in the sanctuary.
Dr. Reginald Jarrett's book 31 Days [Nights]: Memoir of Living Black in America is a series of short essays about his life here in Wichita and across the U.S. A truth-telling book of interpersonal encounters among various ethnicities of Americans told by a gifted communicator, 31 Days will surprise readers and enlarge their understanding of how race functions in America. Jarrell is a professor at Southwestern University and a lawyer, pastor, and TV journalist who has lived across the U.S. but grew up in Wichita. This is his second book.
Dr. Gretchen Eick's newest novel, Dark Crossings, takes place in 2019. An interracial family with two teens living in Evanston, IL, north of Chicago is devastated when a family member is murdered. The difficult journey through the survivors' grief nearly breaks them. The discovery through a DNA test of unknown family members connected to the Philadelphia police murder of 12 Black people on May 13, 1985, helps them reconstruct their lives. Eick is a professor of history emerita and teaches at WSU's Lifelong Learning program. This is her eighth book. The authors will read excerpts and discuss their books and what each adds to our knowledge of the role of "race" in today's U.S.