Obioma Anukwuem will sign copies of his book, “Debt: Slavery in Disguise” on Saturday, April 15, 3-5 p.m., at the Salisbury Walmart.

The subtitle of his book tells the story: “How I Paid Off a Debt of Half a Million Dollars in Three and a Half Years.” He offers practical advice for paying off debt with simple solutions to common problems. His version of the American dream became a burden until he reduced or eliminated his debts.

Anukwuem, born in Nigeria, is a physician who lives in Salisbury with his wife and two children and works in Statesville.

His book is available at South Main Book Co. in downtown Salisbury, 110 S. Main St.

Tyson on ‘Bookwatch’

Tim Tyson talks about “The Blood of Emmett Till” on “North Carolina Bookwatch” today at noon and April 13 at 5 p.m.

Tyson revisits the 1955 kidnapping and brutal killing of Till, a 14-year-old black youth from Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi.

At a country store, Till’s encounter with an attractive white woman broke the “color code” and prompted her husband and brother-in-law to punish him.

Tyson revisits the horrible details of Till’s kidnapping, the brutal beating and the gunshot through his head that ended his life. He details the attempt to hide Till’s body by attaching a heavy fan to it with barbed wire and tossing it into a nearby river.

A few days later, however, Till’s bloated and mangled body was discovered and ultimately returned to Chicago, where his mother insisted on an open-casket funeral.

The event captured the attention of the public as profoundly as the widely publicized images of Till’s brutalized body.

More importantly, according to Tyson, “the impact of the Till lynching resonated across America for years, touching virtually everyone who heard.”

Tyson says that it motivated North Carolina A&T students who began a sit-in at Woolworth’s in Greensboro on February 1, 1960.

Also he says, the recent national movement born of the killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and other similar killings continues the tradition as “young protesters throughout the United States chanted, ‘Say his name! Emmett Till!’ ”