Damaged Heritage: The Elaine Race Massacre and a Story of Reconciliation by J. Chester Johnson
Damaged Heritage: The Elaine Race Massacre and a Story of Reconciliation by J. Chester Johnson
The 1919 Elaine Race Massacre, arguably the worst in our country's history has been widely unknown for the better part of a century thanks to the whitewashing of history. In 2008, J. Chester Johnson was asked to write the Litany of Offense and Apology for a National Day of Repentance, where the Episcopal Church formally apologized for its role in transatlantic slavery and related evils.
In his research, Johnson came upon a treatise by historian and anti-lynching advocate Ida B. Wells on the Elaine Massacre, where more than a hundred and, possibly hundreds, of African-American men, women, and children perished at the hands of white posses, vigilantes, and federal troops in rural Phillips County, Arkansas.
As he worked, Johnson would discover that his beloved grandfather had participated in the Massacre. The discovery shook him to his core. Determined to find some way to acknowledge and reconcile this terrible truth, Johnson would eventually meet Sheila L. Walker, a descendant of African-American victims of the Massacre. She herself had also been on her own journey through family history that led straight to the Elaine Race Massacre. Together, she and Johnson committed themselves to a journey of racial reconciliation and abiding friendship.
Damaged Heritage brings to light a deliberately erased chapter in American history, and Johnson offers a blueprint for how our pluralistic society can at last acknowledge -- and deal with -- damaged heritage and follow a path to true healing.
Pegasus Books, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 2020
THIS IS A BRAND NEW BOOK.