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Damaged Heritage: The Elaine Race Massacre and A Story of Reconciliation
An illuminating journey to racial reconciliation experienced by two Americans—one black and one white.
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, 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 happened 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. Johnson would discover that his beloved grandfather had been a member of the KKK and participated in the massacre. The discovery shook him to his core. Thereafter, he met Sheila L. Walker, a descendant of African-American victims of the massacre, and she and Johnson committed themselves to reconciliation. Damaged Heritage brings to light a deliberately erased chapter in American history, and offers a blueprint for how our pluralistic society can at last acknowledge—and repudiate—our collective damaged heritage and begin a path towards true healing.
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, 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 happened 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. Johnson would discover that his beloved grandfather had been a member of the KKK and participated in the massacre. The discovery shook him to his core. Thereafter, he met Sheila L. Walker, a descendant of African-American victims of the massacre, and she and Johnson committed themselves to reconciliation. Damaged Heritage brings to light a deliberately erased chapter in American history, and offers a blueprint for how our pluralistic society can at last acknowledge—and repudiate—our collective damaged heritage and begin a path towards true healing.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
400 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 5, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 31, 2020
In 1936, James Agee and Walker Evans headed to Alabama on an assignment for Fortune magazine to discover the tenant farmer lifestyle. They encountered three families who gave of themselves generously although they had nothing, whose subsistence living had aged them beyond their years, and who were hopelessly caught in a socioeconomic system that held them like gnats in a spider's web. Agee and Evans would never be the same. In 1941, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men came out and unsparingly shared their written and photographic journey into extreme poverty and marginalization.
Similarly, J. Chester Johnson--poet and translator--traveled in the mid-2000s back to his childhood home in southeast Arkansas to trace the story of the 1919 Elaine Race Massacre, an event largely unknown and/or written about, save for a few scholars such as Ida B. Wells and two or three contemporary researchers. He walked the road to the cotton fields where African American sharecroppers had been gunned down by federal troops, and he pieced together the narrative that even locals had only whispered about.
This journey, also a memoir of growing up in a racist culture, goes further back to examine Johnson's participation in the Jim Crow environment he knew as home--where did he diverge from the accepted norm, and where did he benefit from the gratuitous privileges he enjoyed? The result is a spellbinding portrayal of segregation--how African Americans felt forced to keep a low profile or risk a gruesome death by white supremacists, and how the Civil Rights movement seemed like a second Yankee invasion to entrenched Confederates.
"Damaged Heritage" refers not only to inherited racist attitudes then and now but calls out one relative of the author's who participated in the Elaine Race Riot. Through an amazing series of events, Johnson meets Sheila Walker, whose ancestors were victims of the riot. Johnson's journey is personal--a reconciliation with himself and his family as much as one with Sheila Walker, whose antecedents survived a gunning down, and then terrifying twists in the legal system that nearly sent them to the electric chair.
I read this book in two sittings. It brought home the discomfort that was the everyday for black southerners, and fearful if unspoken norms that undergirded the dominant white culture. Like all precise histories, this book serves us best by giving context to the past so we can see the present more clearly, and compassionately. For the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement in America, start here--and learn, as the author quotes Faulkner, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
Similarly, J. Chester Johnson--poet and translator--traveled in the mid-2000s back to his childhood home in southeast Arkansas to trace the story of the 1919 Elaine Race Massacre, an event largely unknown and/or written about, save for a few scholars such as Ida B. Wells and two or three contemporary researchers. He walked the road to the cotton fields where African American sharecroppers had been gunned down by federal troops, and he pieced together the narrative that even locals had only whispered about.
This journey, also a memoir of growing up in a racist culture, goes further back to examine Johnson's participation in the Jim Crow environment he knew as home--where did he diverge from the accepted norm, and where did he benefit from the gratuitous privileges he enjoyed? The result is a spellbinding portrayal of segregation--how African Americans felt forced to keep a low profile or risk a gruesome death by white supremacists, and how the Civil Rights movement seemed like a second Yankee invasion to entrenched Confederates.
"Damaged Heritage" refers not only to inherited racist attitudes then and now but calls out one relative of the author's who participated in the Elaine Race Riot. Through an amazing series of events, Johnson meets Sheila Walker, whose ancestors were victims of the riot. Johnson's journey is personal--a reconciliation with himself and his family as much as one with Sheila Walker, whose antecedents survived a gunning down, and then terrifying twists in the legal system that nearly sent them to the electric chair.
I read this book in two sittings. It brought home the discomfort that was the everyday for black southerners, and fearful if unspoken norms that undergirded the dominant white culture. Like all precise histories, this book serves us best by giving context to the past so we can see the present more clearly, and compassionately. For the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement in America, start here--and learn, as the author quotes Faulkner, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
January 2, 2025
J. Chester Johnson has written a remarkable book. In "Damaged Heritage," the author takes a deeply personal connection to a piece of history most of us were never taught in school, and uses it as a way to show the reader that important-to-know history. In addition, he movingly recounts the story of his own reconciliation to his past, and a reconciliation with another person whose past is inextricably linked to his own. For those who care about social justice issues, the book can also serve as a primer on race relations, both past and present, and provide insights into the "whys" of the present state of affairs. I discussed this book in a group (which is why it took me so long to read), and another beauty of the book is the way what Johnson writes opens up frank discussions from one's own experience and leads to greater interpersonal understanding and connection.
June 29, 2022
Damaged Heritage is a memoir by an American Southerner who discovers decades after his own childhood that he must review, reassess and rewrite his history. If ever there was a time, and we are in an era of states fighting to control the content of history being taught in our schools, for Americans to finally shake off the blinders of selective memory it is now.
Other reviews have delved into the extraordinary details of J. Chester Johnson’s compunction to write this book: the 1919 Elaine, AK massacre by white supremacists of men, women and children; the stunning revelation that his own beloved grandfather took part in the slaughter; the meeting with a woman whose family had been attacked… I will keep mine to consider the effect the book had upon me and its importance to our national crisis of identity.
The term ‘damaged heritage’ central to the book, and indeed, its title, is discussed at length in its varying definitions beginning with racial prejudice. For the white reader to acknowledge the profound affect manipulated and edited history can have on life is not easy. It means releasing parts of valid memories and world views – and it is voluntary. With eleven states now challenging verified inclusive history it cannot be said that any ignorance of unconscionable, unpunished crimes is unconscious.
Part of the expanded awareness of full American history is the rejection of filiopietism, the near religious veneration of ancestors and tradition, at least in part, once the immoral reality of huge swaths of our heritage is admitted. Johnson makes liberal use of this concept as well, illustrating the ways we as a nation, both North and South, lull ourselves into a compartmentalized national image.
Some parts of the memoir read like those of other writers of the American South: Capote, Welty, McCullers …the childhood days safely wandering town neighborhoods, the deep family connection between generations. Readers from all parts of this country love to luxuriate in the implied southern drawl of those past times replete with pecan pies and molasses candy. We too hesitate to recognize that so much of our prosperity, even relative prosperity, came at too great a price from fellow Americans. Yet often those writers (Welty especially) blind side us with visceral observations of inexcusable racism; history lessons disguised as fictional short stories, there for us to witness.
After reading some of the details of the Elaine Massacre, I wondered at the enlightened spirit that Sheila L. Walker must possess to consider offering forgiveness to Lonnie Birch. Clearly I have a long way to go on the continuum of spiritual evolution. That said, I do find reason for hope within this powerful story of accountability and reconciliation. I hope for fully inclusive American History in our archives and schools.
Thanks to independent scholars, organizations such as the National Archives and Records Administration, the Zinn Educational Project, and, yes, Wikipedia!, we can discover how fascinating our history is, how to learn from it to make a better future and where heroes of all races, genders and religions can guide us through their shining examples. Online research and shared discoveries are opening up new avenues of investigation and possibly reconciliation.
It took J. Chester Johnson a lifetime to find those gaps in his education that once filled helped to make sense of his place in the world. Damaged Heritage is his gift to each of us, a blueprint for seeking out those critical areas in our memory that seem incomplete. Once we discover our courage to face those shadows head on, our transformation make take us by surprise.
Other reviews have delved into the extraordinary details of J. Chester Johnson’s compunction to write this book: the 1919 Elaine, AK massacre by white supremacists of men, women and children; the stunning revelation that his own beloved grandfather took part in the slaughter; the meeting with a woman whose family had been attacked… I will keep mine to consider the effect the book had upon me and its importance to our national crisis of identity.
The term ‘damaged heritage’ central to the book, and indeed, its title, is discussed at length in its varying definitions beginning with racial prejudice. For the white reader to acknowledge the profound affect manipulated and edited history can have on life is not easy. It means releasing parts of valid memories and world views – and it is voluntary. With eleven states now challenging verified inclusive history it cannot be said that any ignorance of unconscionable, unpunished crimes is unconscious.
Part of the expanded awareness of full American history is the rejection of filiopietism, the near religious veneration of ancestors and tradition, at least in part, once the immoral reality of huge swaths of our heritage is admitted. Johnson makes liberal use of this concept as well, illustrating the ways we as a nation, both North and South, lull ourselves into a compartmentalized national image.
Some parts of the memoir read like those of other writers of the American South: Capote, Welty, McCullers …the childhood days safely wandering town neighborhoods, the deep family connection between generations. Readers from all parts of this country love to luxuriate in the implied southern drawl of those past times replete with pecan pies and molasses candy. We too hesitate to recognize that so much of our prosperity, even relative prosperity, came at too great a price from fellow Americans. Yet often those writers (Welty especially) blind side us with visceral observations of inexcusable racism; history lessons disguised as fictional short stories, there for us to witness.
After reading some of the details of the Elaine Massacre, I wondered at the enlightened spirit that Sheila L. Walker must possess to consider offering forgiveness to Lonnie Birch. Clearly I have a long way to go on the continuum of spiritual evolution. That said, I do find reason for hope within this powerful story of accountability and reconciliation. I hope for fully inclusive American History in our archives and schools.
Thanks to independent scholars, organizations such as the National Archives and Records Administration, the Zinn Educational Project, and, yes, Wikipedia!, we can discover how fascinating our history is, how to learn from it to make a better future and where heroes of all races, genders and religions can guide us through their shining examples. Online research and shared discoveries are opening up new avenues of investigation and possibly reconciliation.
It took J. Chester Johnson a lifetime to find those gaps in his education that once filled helped to make sense of his place in the world. Damaged Heritage is his gift to each of us, a blueprint for seeking out those critical areas in our memory that seem incomplete. Once we discover our courage to face those shadows head on, our transformation make take us by surprise.
December 7, 2022
I read this book as part of my research for my undergraduate thesis on the Elaine Massacre, and it's one of the works that has really stuck with me. I am also from Arkansas, and it can be hard to find literature that aptly captures the experience of growing up in the South. Johnson does a wonderful job of conveying that. He toes the line between an engaging personal memoir and a historical book quite well. I found the story of his grandfather very valuable, as someone whose white grandparents attended Central High School during the integration crisis.
January 10, 2021
At times it became repetitive and veered into a different directions. If it had been edited more stringently it would have been a better book.
Did Not Finish
January 28, 2021DNF - I just couldn't get past the flowery language
January 21, 2024
Another sad story in our forgotten (purposefully) history
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews