Charles Johnson (Abingdon Press). His book tells the true story of Dr. Charles Johnson, an African American preacher who came to Mississippi in 1961 during the summer of the Freedom Rides. He found himself unwittingly thrust into the heart of a national tragedy, the murder of three Civil Rights activists. As a key African American witness to take the stand in the trial famously known as “Mississippi Burning,” Charles Johnson played a key role for the U.S. Justice Department, offering clarity to the event that led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The reader will be riveted with the book’s climax which details the shocking encounter between Charles and one of the murderers. Chet Bush lives in Oxford with his wife Allie and their two children. He is pastor of the Oxford Nazarene Church.