Profile

Introduction

J. Chester Johnson is a poet, nonfiction writer, and translator. His writings have been published domestically and abroad and translated into several languages. Johnson, whose work has been praised by leading writers and critics over a few decades, has authored numerous volumes of poetry, including St. Paul’s Chapel & Selected Shorter Poems, second edition (published in 2010 by St. Johann Press); the collection’s signature poem remains the memento card for the multitude of visitors to the chapel that survived the 9/11 terrorists’ attacks at Ground Zero (more than 1.5 million poem cards have been distributed). American Book Review regarded the poem this way, “Johnson’s ‘St. Paul’s Chapel’ is one of the most widely distributed, lauded, and translated poems of the current century.” The well-known poet, Major Jackson, said of the volume, St. Paul’s Chapel & Selected Shorter Poems, “Undoubtedly, this is a work headed for literary permanence.”

In January, 2017, a companion volume, Now And Then: Selected Longer Poems, authored by Johnson, was published (St. Johann Press). The acclaimed poet and scholar, Lawrence Joseph, characterized the book, as follows: “The scope of Now And Then is epic. It provides its readers with the same amplitude of intelligence, passion and formal achievement as our great American epics – Melville’s Moby Dick, Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and Ginsberg’s Fall of America. It is a book of fierce spiritual and moral witness, energy and power.”

Johnson and W. H. Auden served as the two poets on the drafting committee for the retranslation of the Psalms, which is the version contained in the current edition of The Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church; the retranslation has been adopted by Lutherans in Canada and the United States, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Scottish Episcopal Church; it was also adopted as the preferred (now, permitted) Psalm translation until the Church of England produced its own retranslation in 2000. Episcopal Psalms are still approved for use by the Church of England. Johnson’s memoir and literary and historical commentary on the retranslation of the Psalms, Auden, the Psalms, and Me, was published in 2017 by Church Publishing Incorporated.

J. Chester Johnson has also written extensively (both prose and poetry) about civil rights and race relations. Several of his pieces are part of the J. Chester Johnson Collection in the Civil Rights Archives at Queens College (New York City). He authored the Litany of Offense and Apology in poetry and prose for the national Day of Repentance (October 4, 2008) when the Episcopal Church formally apologized for its role in slavery and related evils. Being born white and reared in one of the country’s most racially segregated regions, Johnson responded against racism in his writings and life experiences; after MLK’s murder, he returned to the town of his youth and taught in the all African-American public school there before integration of the local education system.

During the course of writing the Litany of Offense and Apology for the Episcopal Church, Johnson discovered a detailed treatise on the Elaine Race Massacre, authored by the activist icon and anti-lynching advocate, Ida B. Wells. The Massacre occurred in southeast Arkansas along the Mississippi River Delta in 1919. With the Wells’ writing as a helpful anchor, Johnson spent several years of study on the event, discovering that his own maternal grandfather had participated in the onslaughts against Black sharecroppers and their family members by local whites, white vigilantes from neighboring communities and the states of Mississippi and Tennessee, and white federal troops.

The Massacre is arguably one of the most significant attacks, if not the most significant attack by whites against Blacks in our country’s history. Out of this study, Johnson developed a Black-white allyship and great friendship with Sheila Walker, a descendent of several victims of the Massacre, and from an evolving racial healing commitment by both Sheila Walker and Johnson came the story of the Massacre and the related Black-white, personal allyship, as described in Johnson’s book, Damaged Heritage: The Elaine Race Massacre and A Story of Reconciliation.

Johnson has read his work at Harvard University, the Carter Center, the Washington National Cathedral, and on the BBC, among other venues. To learn more about these events and appearances, go to the Happenings page on this web site.

J. Chester Johnson, born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, spent his youth in a small town located on the cusp of the Mississippi River Delta in southeast Arkansas. Johnson, who has lived most of his adult life in New York City, is married to Freda Stern Johnson; they have two children. For over three decades, in addition to his writing, Johnson owned and ran a financial advisory firm that concentrated on capital finance and debt management for states, large local governments, and public authorities; he also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U. S. Treasury Department during the Carter Administration. Johnson was educated at Harvard College and the University of Arkansas (Distinguished Alumnus Award, 2010).

Poetry Volumes

St. Paul’s Chapel & Selected Shorter Poems
For Conduct And Innocents
Pater, Magnificus
Exile
Martin
Shorts: For Fun, Not For Instruction
Home
Shorts: On Reaching Forty
Lazarus, Come Forth
Meditations on Civil Rights Activists
The Mixer
January 12th, 1967

Readings

“Ten Years After September 11, 2001: Poets House and Trinity Wall Street, in conjunction with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, presented a reading by some of America’s leading poets as part of the 10th anniversary of 9/11. This event was held in the sanctuary of Trinity Church, a few blocks from Ground Zero. Poets Mark Doty, Cornelius Eady, Marie Howe, Major Jackson, J. Chester Johnson, Lawrence Joseph, Martha Rhodes and others will read poems of grief, remembrance and reconciliation.”
– Poets House announcement.

Other Readings: The Rockefeller Distinguished Lecture Series, among many others. Johnson gave more than 85 presentations, both by internet and in person, including interviews in connection with the publication of Damaged Heritage.

Miscellaneous

– During the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960s, Johnson taught in an all African-American public school in the Mississippi Delta. A number of his writings are now part of the Civil Rights Archives at Queens College.
– Johnson wrote a series of articles on racial healing for History News Network in connection with the publication of Damaged Heritage.
– Johnson has also advised, over most of his life, some of the largest governments and non-profit institutions, primarily (although not exclusively) in the USA, on financing and debt management matters. Johnson served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U. S. Treasury Department.
– Johnson was educated at Harvard College and the University of Arkansas (Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2010).
– Johnson serves as chairman of the Elaine Massacre Memorial Committee. In Damaged Heritage, he wrote that neighboring communities to Elaine that have lynching histories should erect “Never Again” type memorials for their racial violence histories. After the dedication of the Elaine Memorial in 2019, he wrote the mayor of his hometown, recommending that Monticello, Arkansas have a monument recognizing its lynching past. While it has taken a number of years to bring to fruition, a Memorial Reconciliation Bench of 2/3rds of a ton, placed in front of City Hall, will be dedicated the spring of 2025.
– In 2024, the book, Damaged Heritage, was chosen to be included among the select number of books for the Library of Congress Shop.