Cecil Bothwell

When Cecil Bothwell was elected to Asheville's City Council in 2009 a Confederate, Christian activist attempted to block his induction to office, based on an archaic provision of the North Carolina Constitution which bars from office anyone who "shall deny the being of Almighty God." The trigger was Bothwell's statement concerning personal belief in his critical biography, The Prince of War: Billy Graham's Crusade for a Wholly Chrisitian Empire (Brave Ulysses Books, 2007).

The story went viral, reported and repeated around the globe in eight languages, on television, radio and in print. The debate concerning church/state separation erupted in blogs and letters-to-the-editor pages, and hundreds of supporters flooded the author with snail-mail, e-mails and donations to his campaign fund.

Bothwell is an investigative reporter and biographer based in Asheville, and has received national awards from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and the Society of Professional Journalists for investigative reporting, criticism and humorous commentary. Former news editor of Asheville City Paper, former managing editor of Asheville’s Mountain Xpress and founding editor of the Warren Wilson College environmental journal Heartstone, he served for several years as a member of the national editorial board of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and currently serves on the boards of two inter-national educational nonprofit organizations working in Latin America. His weekly radio and print journal, Duck Soup: Essays on the Submerging Culture, remained in syndication for 10 years.

He blogs at: bothwellsblog.wordpress .com