WS Chronicle

In above photo: Pamela Bradsher and Pamela Pryor-Grace get author Victoria Christopher Murray to sign “Stand Your Ground” and “Temptation”. (Photo by Felecia P. Long)

By Felecia Piggott-Long, Ph. D.

For The Chronicle

Victoria Christopher Murray, Essence best-selling author of 25 novels, and three-time NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Fiction, has done it again.

Her latest off the press, “Stand Your Ground,” rides upon the spirited wind of our times.

Murray weaves a timely story about race relations within the American justice system.

She engaged a lively audience of book club enthusiasts, fans from the first 24 novels, and newcomers who packed the book discussion area of the Forsyth County Public Library, Carver School Road Branch on Monday, July 20.

Several women in the audience had already read the novel, and came to get it autographed as well as a bag of other favorites, such as “Temptation,” “The Ex Files,” “Lady Jasmine and The Deal” and “The Dance and the Devil,” a book soon to be seen on screen.

Murray has been writing since she was a child in the second grade.

She “plagiarized” a “masterpiece” full of all of the characters she loved.

There were three pigs in her play, three bears, seven little men, a good witch and a bad witch.

Murray’s second-grade teacher allowed the entire second -grade class to participate in a live production of Murray’s production.

“She validated the gift that had been given to me. . . And when I was in the seventh grade, I saw a black man’s face on the back of a book [Richard Wright], I asked why it was there. The librarian told me he wrote that book. I could not get my hands on enough literature,” she said.

After graduating from Hampton University and earning her MBA in Marketing, she never lost the dream to write.

She wrote her first book in 1997: “Temptation.”

It was about a Christian man who loved his wife, but he yielded to temptation.

It was filled with drama like so many of her books.

They have been listed under the genre of Christian Fiction.

However, her book “Stand Your Ground” has been listed as a “must read.”

Murray has come to realize that “This is the most important book I have ever written,” she said. “This book will make you want to do something! This book is impactful. It is so relevant. I wrote it when Micheal Brown and Eric Garner had been killed. I became an Angry Black Woman, and this book helped me work it out.”

“This is my most important book because the Stand Your Ground Law affects so many people in so many ways. Not enough of us understand this law,” she said. “I wanted to tell a story that is entertaining and educates the public as well.”

The storyline revolves around two mothers who are 33 years of age, and each woman has one son.

One woman is the mother of a seventeen-year-old African American male, and the other woman is the wife of the wealthy white male who shoots the Black teen.

According to Murray, “The shooter is wealthy, and his family is well-known. He does not like thugs, but he loves black boys, as he has sown into many black boys’ lives,” she said. “Nobody is all good, and nobody is all bad.”

Murray has chosen to use the national controversy surrounding the Trayvon Martin case and “Stand Your Ground” gun laws to start a movement toward repealing this law.

When Murray first penned this text, there were only 23 states that had adopted this law.

Arkansas has recently become the 26th state under this law.

Murray wishes that the earlier states had fought to rid America of this scourge.

“They are quietly adding more states, and we are just being quiet about it. We forget sometimes when the emotions have died down. Nobody is interested in the issue then,” Murray said. “I hate that abut us as a people! We cannot let it go! We must galvanize a movement state by state. It is harder to galvanize state by state, but we should take a lesson from North Carolina. North Carolina is first up on the Voting Rights and Moral Monday issues. We need to watch what you are doing. I am happy about your effort. You had more than 6,000 marching against these issues.”