Emory’s Gregory Ellison will speak at a public event at the Atlanta History Center to launch his new book, “Fearless Dialogues: A New Movement for Justice,” on Thursday, Jan. 11. Tickets are $10 and available on the Atlanta History Center’s website.

The event will open at 7 p.m. with a reception featuring music, food and the artists involved in helping facilitate Fearless Dialogues, a grassroots organization working to create unique spaces for unlikely partners to engage in hard, heartfelt conversations. Ellison will speak at 8 p.m., offering strategies to overcome the five fears that stifle hard conversation.

Since its founding in 2013, Ellison and the Fearless Dialogues team have introduced their groundbreaking methodology to more than 20,000 people, from all parts of the country and overseas, and from all walks of life. Fearless Dialogues aren’t conversations that go nowhere, says Ellison, but are designed for participants to “see gifts in others, hear value in stories, and work for change and positive transformation in self and other.”                       

Ellison, who is associate professor of pastoral care and counseling at Emory’s Candler School of Theology, is a product of Atlanta Public Schools, alumnus of Frederick Douglass High School and the first black male inducted into the Emory College Hall of Fame. He received his undergraduate degree from Emory, and holds MDiv and PhD degrees in pastoral theology from Princeton Theological Seminary.

In his eight years at Candler, Ellison has been awarded Faculty Person of the Year twice and in 2014, received the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award, Emory’s most prestigious faculty teaching honor. He also is author of “Cut Dead But Still Alive: Caring for African American Young Men.”