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Burden: A Preacher, a Klansman, and a True Story of Redemption in the Modern South Audiobook
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The true events that inspired the major motion picture starring Forest Whitaker, written and directed by Andrew Heckler, and produced by Robbie Brenner (Dallas Buyers Club)
A harrowing true story of the modern Ku Klux Klan and an act of grace that shook a community in the Deep South.
In 1996, the town of Laurens, South Carolina, was thrust into the international spotlight when a white supremacist named Michael Burden opened a museum celebrating the Ku Klux Klan on the community’s main square. Journalists and protestors flooded the town, and hate groups rallied to the establishment’s defense, dredging up the long history of racial violence in this formerly prosperous mill town.
What came next is the subject of an upcoming major motion picture starring Forest Whitaker, Garrett Hedlund, Tom Wilkinson, Andrea Riseborough, and Usher Raymond. Shortly after his museum opened, Michael Burden abruptly left the Klan at the urging of a woman he fell in love with. Broke and homeless, he was taken in by Reverend David Kennedy, an African American preacher and leader in the Laurens community, who plunged his church headlong in a quest to save their former enemy.
In this spellbinding Southern epic, journalist Courtney Hargrave uncovers the complex events behind the story told in the film, exploring the choices that led to Kennedy and Burden’s friendship, the social factors that drive young men to join hate groups, the intersection of poverty and racism in the divided South, and the difference one person can make in confronting America’s oldest sin.
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“This extraordinary true story narrated by silky-smooth voiced Dion Graham follows the conversion of a former Ku Klux Klansman from an overt racist to a friend by a brave African–American preacher in the segregated South. Graham shines as he portrays Michael Burden with a hint of sadness and anger in his voice. Reverend David Kennedy, as depicted by Graham, shows the grace and faith of a believer who confronts hatred and overcomes it with love. Graham slows his pace to grip the listener emotionally while taking a warm and loving tone as the man of faith ministers to his fractured community and to a lost and broken man.”
— AudioFile
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“A crucial story for these times of escalated racial division and cultural strife, Burden uses cinematic storytelling to compel us to take a good, hard look at who we are and who we can be. Ultimately, it is a story that shows us love really can conquer all and leaves us with a profound sense of hope for the future.“
— Robin Gaby Fisher, Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author
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About Courtney Hargrave
Courtney Hargrave is a journalist and a co-author who has worked on numerous New York Times bestsellers in the entertainment space.