Damaged Heritage

“Johnson’s aptly titled book will recognize that although his story is autobiographical, he serves as an Everyman, telling of a need for us all to confront this past, which so infects our present.  Johnson is gifted writer.  Damaged Heritage is part memoir, part history, and part essay on racism, all tied together by a story of a friendship that transcended the racial gulf that plagues our country. This book is a model for calling on our better selves.”

"J. Chester Johnson is of that generation of southern-born white people who came of age in the 1960s, deep in the heart of American apartheid, in hometowns they were taught to see as perfections of the American dream. Then they were tortured first by personal discovery of the white supremacist evil that suffused their idyllic worlds, then tortured by the failure of peers to make the same discovery, and finally tortured by revelations of the complicity of people they loved and admired most.  In Damaged Heritage, Johnson poignantly reveals the demons he discovered in his own life and family, ties to one of the worst racial horrors in American history, his personal anguish, and his efforts to make amends and fill a desperate empty place in our hearts. Only a poet can see this clearly, be this honest, and still hope this much.”

 

“'It is not permissible,' wrote James Baldwin, 'that the authors of devastation should also be innocent... it is the innocence which constitutes the crime.' In J. Chester Johnson’s Damaged Heritage, a native son has given up that threadbare old claim to white innocence, as he grapples with a beloved grandfather’s role in the Elaine Race Massacre of 1919, in which more than a hundred African American sharecroppers were killed. This is a heartfelt and deeply personal contribution to the literature of white remembrance, and a serious reckoning with the past.”

"If you think as a culture we have reached an immovable impasse, read this book. If you hold the belief that where we’ve been doesn’t bleed into the way we live now, read this book. If you are beginning to suspect we are a people who have lost the desire to heal, read this book. J. Chester Johnson has done more than tell us a story that must be told – he has laid the healing tools in our hands, and left instructions. This is how it starts."

"Johnson is making a profound contribution to that sacred healing work with his truth telling of this long overdue story."

"Johnson poignantly tells of a personal family history that stretches from the darkest days of 1919 to a moment of grace nearly a century later, when he met with Sheila Walker. A moving and inspiring read."

Damaged Heritage reverberates. This is not just an Arkansas story, not just a Southern saga, but a national one. If we can achieve reconciliation and genuine relationships that span the racial gulf, then this book is a beacon of hope shining a light on that possibility.

 

“I read Damaged Heritage in one sitting. It’s wonderfully written, a proverbial page-turner, and the right book for the present. I sincerely hope this volume becomes a bestseller. It certainly deserves to be, not least because of its timeliness and accessibility.”