Posts from April 2022

April 28, 2022

“Damaged Heritage” Placed On Selective Goodreads’ List of Best Nonfiction Books

Damaged Heritage appears on a Goodreads’ multi-year, international list (less than 500 books) for Best Nonfiction Books (alongside The Diary of Anne Frank, Hiroshima, and The Gulag Archipelago, among others). Set forth below is a selective list of various books included on the Goodreads’ list.

1. The Diary of Anne Frank
2. Hiroshima – John Hersey
3. In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
7. Night – Elie Wiesel
39. The Gulag Archipelago – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
128. Massacres In The American West – Larry McMurtry
134. The Great Fire of London – Samuel Pepys
262. Slavery by Another Name – Douglas Blackmon
269. Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee – Dee Brown
348. The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
358. On Lynching – Ida B. Wells-Barnett
387. The Strange Career of Jim Crow – C. Vann Woodward
418. The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War – David Halberstam
420. Damaged Heritage: The Elaine Race Massacre and A Story of Reconciliation – J. Chester Johnson
420. Playing With Fire – Lawrence O’Donnell
431. The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror – David Hoffman
433. Battle Cry of Freedom – James M. McPherson
435. The Barbarous Years: Peopling of North America, 1600-1675 – Bernard Bailyn
445. A Hoxton Childhood – A. S. Jasper

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April 25, 2022

“Damaged Heritage” Motivates Nationwide Talks on Social Justice and Racial Equity

Message Recently Received From APJMM:

"Damaged Heritage" has motivated APJMM (Arkansas Peace & Justice Memorial Movement) to set up the central Arkansas chapter of Coming to the Table, a national non-profit organization that works to get the descendants of the enslaved and the enslavers to sit down at the table together to talk. And, since March 2020, we have hosted FREE bi-weekly virtual gatherings that have attracted over a thousand people nationwide to participate in talks about social justice and racial equity issues.

Arkansas Peace & Justice Memorial Movement

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April 18, 2022

J. Chester Johnson Writes in the ARKANSAS TIMES About Another Arkansas Race Massacre

In late September, 2019, an evocative and dramatic memorial was dedicated in Phillips County, Arkansas to the victims of the Elaine Race Massacre. J. Chester Johnson served as co-chair for this memorial. A conclusion impelled him to acknowledge emphatically and publicly that the Elaine Massacre did not occur in a vacuum, for the long arm of history reached into Phillips County and set in motion a course of unmitigated violence and consumptive death against a vast number of African-Americans. Based on additional research, Johnson discovered another race massacre against African-Americans in Arkansas – the Little River Race Massacre of 1899, an article about which he recently wrote for the ARKANSAS TIMES.

Click Here to read the article by J.Chester Johnson.

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April 11, 2022

Video of J. Chester Johnson’s presentation at Johnson House Historic Site (Underground Railroad).

The Johnson House Historic Site is an icon of the Underground Railroad Freedom Movement – not returning one runaway slave to a master, notwithstanding the existence of the heinous Fugitive Act in effect at the time. J. Chester Johnson spoke to an outdoor gathering at the Johnson House on September 17, 2021. Here is an 18-minute video of the event, celebrating Sheila L. Walker, Chester’s partner in racial healing and reconciliation, and featuring his book, Damaged Heritage: The Elaine Race Massacre and A Story of Reconciliation.

Click here to learn more about Johnson House.

Click on the image below to watch the 18-minute video presentation that honors Sheila L. Walker and features J. Chester Johnson's book, “Damaged Heritage”.

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April 10, 2022

Book Review from Green Mountains Review of “Damaged Heritage”

“Death and Hope from ‘The Heart of Darkness’”, book review of Damaged Heritage: The Elaine Race Massacre and A Story of Reconciliation by J. Chester Johnson, was authored by Dr. Carol Strong, Professor of Political Science at the University of Arkansas (Monticello), which is located only one county removed from the Elaine Race Massacre.
Read here Dr. Strong’s book review appearing in the Green Mountains Review.

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