Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World--and How to Repair It All

by Lisa Sharon Harper, Otis Moss (Foreword)

A Word & Way 2022 Book of the YearSojourners' 2022 Book Roundup to Inspire Faith and Justice"Extraordinary. . . . Let this story of family, race, and resistance create anger in your spirit and ultimately inspire your heart to join the work to heal our nation and eventually our world."--Otis Moss III (from the foreword)Drawing on her lifelong journey to know her family's history, leading Christian activist Lisa Sharon Harper recovers the beauty of her heritage, exposes the brokenness that race has wrought in America, and casts a vision for collective repair.Harper has spent three decades researching ten generations of her family history through DNA research, oral histories, interviews, and genealogy. Fortune, the name of Harper's first nonindigenous ancestor born on American soil, bore the brunt of the nation's first race, gender, and citizenship laws. As Harper traces her family's story through succeeding generations, she shows how American ideas, customs, and laws robbed her ancestors--and the ancestors of so many others--of their humanity and flourishing.Fortune helps readers understand how America was built upon systems and structures that blessed some and cursed others, allowing Americans of European descent to benefit from the colonization, genocide, enslavement, rape, and exploitation of people of color. As Harper lights a path through national and religious history, she clarifies exactly how and when the world broke and shows the way to redemption for us all. The book culminates with a powerful and compelling vision of truth telling, reparation, and forgiveness that leads to Beloved Community. It includes a foreword by Otis Moss III, illustrations, and a glossy eight-page black-and-white insert featuring photos of Harper's family.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Race, History, Audiobook, Biography, Religion

255 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 8, 2022

Reviews

[Richard Propes · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an adult with a disability, I've often expressed that while eugenics laws are, for the most part, a thing of the past, they are alive and well in the institutions, systems, cultures, and beliefs and practices that surround us.

It is difficult to express how I felt reading Lisa Sharon Harper's "Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World - and How to Repair It All."

Harper has spent three decades exploring ten generations of her family's history through DNA research, oral histories, interviews, and genealogy. The result is, of course, more than simply this book as it would be nearly impossible to contain the power of such research within the less than 300 pages captured in print here. However, this book, "Fortune," is a remarkable effort that draws on Harper's experience as she recovers the beauty of her heritage while simultaneously exposing the brokenness that race has wrought in America. As a longtime Christian activist, it is not surprising that Harper winds down this journey by casting a vision for collective repair.

It should be noted, and should be expected for those who know Harper's work, that "Fortune" is not an entertaining read. Harper is not here to play games. She is not here to wax eloquently and to soften the edges. Harper long has been and continues to be a truth-teller and a story weaver and an exposer of difficult to accept facts brought to life because if we are to heal our nation and all of its peoples these are facts we must be willing to admit, face, and offer repentance.

I will confess that it took me a couple chapters to match rhythms with Harper, a writer who is both passionate and very matter-of-fact. There is much love within these pages, though it's a love that reaches higher and demands more and seeks the holy.

With a foreword by Otis Moss III, "Fortune" for me elicited introspection and challenge. I was struck by the beauty that Harper created as she discovered the stories of her family, both painful and wondrous, and I found myself devastated as those stories became the foundation for the stories of this nation's roots with racist structures, laws, and ideologies. It's the weaving together of this tapestry that makes "Fortune" such a remarkable work of impact and inspiration. When I say inspiration, of course, I speak not of the kind of inspiration that leads to feel-good warm and fuzzies but of strengthened accountability and a sense of call to do more than I am doing now.

"Fortune" is most definitely not a "do nothing" book. It is a book that demands that we all do something.

All the words that I can think of to describe "Fortune" feel inadequate. Harper's research into her family's history is remarkable, painful and exhilarating and remarkable and so much more. Harper's ability to weave this history into this nation's history is both intimate and universal. Yet, it is truly Harper's ability to somehow create this tapestry in the third and final part of "Fortune" that for me clinches this book's brilliance. It makes it clear that this is the work of healing our nation and our world, but also of healing our neighborhoods and families and children and adults.

I've long had a deep appreciation for Harper's work and, in some ways, I can't help but feel like much of Harper's life and Harper's work has led her to writing "Fortune" and has equipped her for this difficult task. It is more than simply the research, though certainly it is profound. It is the soul work that she had to do in order to write with such clarity, intelligence, compassion, and vision.

Both masterful in her storytelling and visionary in her social awareness, Lisa Sharon Harper has created a work of profound wonder with "Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World - and How to Repair It All."

[Chanequa Walker-Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book deftly illuminates just how much “the personal is political.” Harper’s traces the impact of racial ideologies upon her family’s existence in America and the Caribbean. The genealogical research is impeccable, reminiscent of Alex Haley’s groundbreaking story in “Roots” and “Queen.” Harper’s story encourages us to dig deeper into understanding our family’s place in the story of race.

[Josh Olds · Rating 5 out of 5]

There have been a lot of books about the history of race in the United States. There are several good books that push back against the established whitewashed narrative of history that downplays the atrocities of slavery, segregation, and racism. To those listening and looking, the unvarnished truth is beginning to shine through. We’ve read about these things on a grand scale. We know of the history of slavery, Jim Crow, and racial inequality. Fortune tells us a personal, intimate, important piece of that larger story.

Based on decades of personal genealogical research, Lisa Sharon Harper tells the story of her heritage. We begin in the late 1600s in Maryland with the eponymous Fortune, a “mulatto” (or mixed-race) woman, daughter of a slave named Sambo and an Ulster Scots woman named Maudlin. A 1681 law by Lord Baltimore stated that the child of a White parent would be born free. It was under that law that Fortune was born. But in 1692, Maryland changed the law. In 1705, a court retroactively applied that new law to Fortune, changing her status from free to slave. Harper deftly moves through her personal family history and the wider historical context, crafting a tragic narrative that details the roots of “race” in America. This opening story shows how race was not something inherent, but a social invention changed on a whim and used to protect the supremacy of those who called themselves White.

Each chapter of the book moves somewhat chronologically, overlapping as Lisa Sharon Harper tells the stories of various ancestors. She writes about the fragmented Lawrence family, beginning with her mother’s father’s father. Here the focus is on the mid 1800s to 1900s, but the story is the same. In the 1880 census, Henry Lawrence became Black. In 1850, as a slave, he had been listed as “mulatto” (mixed). Now, at the decision of a census worker, he was Black. And his white-passing wife Harriet became “mulatto.” It was a decision that would change their lives. With nothing but a mark on a census form changed, White supremacists drove them from their home.

As you move into the 1900s, the story changes from the roots of race to the societal decisions
—legal, judicial, legislative—that entrenched racism and racial hierarchy into America. Each person has their own story, their own piece to the larger history. Sharon even includes a chapter on her own self and growing up in the latter part of the 1900s.

Fortune then moves on to a discussion of repair. Knowing these stories, where do we go from here? Lisa Sharon Harper offers three suggestions: truth-telling as a reckoning, reparation as repentance, and forgiveness. Truth-telling as reckoning is something that you see embodied in this book. Harper personalizes the atrocity. It’s not just slavery. It’s one particular enslaved person who is an ancestor to a living, breathing person today. It’s not something a long way off, but something of which the effects still reverberate to the present.

I can’t even begin to fathom how difficult of a book this must have been to write. Hundreds of years of family trauma are all laid out in the open. Trauma rooted in White supremacy. Trauma rooted in being called less than human. Trauma of inequality. It’s one thing to know of past evil. It’s another to put a story to its victims. Fortune is history, but also story. Harper crafts a compelling narrative that manages to bring the depth of historical context while focusing on the intimacy of one family’s story. It’s a beautiful book. Even though so much of it is painful, I’m so glad to have this history. No matter how hard evil forces tried through centuries of dehumanizing work, these stories are remembered. And in remembering, Lisa Sharon Harper finds herself re-membered—placed in connection to her ancestors and their story. It’s a beautiful, hopeful book.

[Traci Rhoades · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable. Lisa Sharon Harper went on a personal quest to find threads of her family history. I applaud her efforts and am delighted for her that she could track some of her ancestry.

I lament with her over much of what she found. She skillfully wove her story in with history, making for a compelling read. One that is full of hard truths and lessons. Thanks to her for taking part in our education and steps toward repair, redemption and restoration. God's good work.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read my review on StoryGraph! https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews...
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The chapter on forgiveness and truth telling is truly excellent. One to turn to again and again.

Loved the historical explorations and emphasis on loving your lineage. We need Lisa’s voice.

[Kaytee Cobb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blasted through this in a single day. Worth it. It was excellent. Personal history interwoven with faith deconstruction and spiritual resistance.

[Lisa Hammer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the author’s personal story so powerful in seeing how it tied into the larger story of race in the US. I listened to the audiobook but think I would have appreciated it more reading a hard copy.

[Graydon Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sharing one’s family story is a gift, and I’m thankful that Lisa Sharon Harper has gifted us with this book. Her family history is representative of the American story of racism and gender inequality, and she has done a wonderful job of telling both stories side by side.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lisa Harper, Wow! What amazing research and stamina tracking down your people and places, letting us live through so much with them and with you. Your clarion call for "we can do better," the "beloved community," and for repair and forgiveness. Thank you.

[Cara Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I especially loved the last three chapters - Lisa weaves together the story as a whole and the argument climaxes in a really beautiful, necessary sort of way.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This audiobook was great. I loved the way Harper took the specifics of her family tree and illustrated larger truths about our world. The author narrates the audiobook and it’s worth a listen.

[Rcdyba · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Fortune: How Race Broke My Family And My World And How to Heal It All, Lisa Sharon Harper invites us to join her search for her roots of ancestral slavery. Through research and oral family history, she envisions the psychological fortitude evinced by her ancestors abducted from African in 1681. Harper weaves history and the personal narrative of her great-great-grandmother Fortune to trace how Eurocentric America used legislation to institutionalize slavery. Harper's heart-wrenching poetic prose reveals how Fortune's personal history is shaped by American history: "Her teenage body absorbed the wrath of the first race, gender, and citizenship laws in this land." To be blunt, her research traces how white supremacy codified racism in the name of economy at the expense of specific non-white lives, families, and generations of un-lived freedom.
But this is not a history book set to demonize or divide white America. Far from it, this is a manifesto of compassion and a call to forgive and repair our broken connection, the divine connection we share as human beings all made in the image of God. Harper's call to awareness and acknowledgement contends that the real problem isn't in the slave past of America, but in the institutional and cultural racism that created it and still insidiously underpins the current climate in America. This is manifested in social concerns like real estate, health care, environmental infrastructure, voting rights, and educational inequities that are enforced by coded legislation.
"We cannot repair the collective until we know when and how we broke it." Harper then tells us how we broke it, and somehow does so with the language of love and justice and faith. The family secrets she shares and the personal trauma she bears are astoundingly void of rage and revenge. Instead, with a stubborn faith, she insists that our shared Imago Dei is reason enough to begin to forgive and repair the physical, cultural, and institutional violence of oppression.
Make no mistake. This is a book that addresses the social justice issues of racism with a spiritual magnifying glass. It is more than an idealistic dream list for an American social utopia. Harper returns again and again to the radical message of Jesus that denounces the oppression of empire, exposes the hypocrisy of legalistic religion, and resurrects the communion of Imago Dei in all of us. She affirms, "The far flung love of Jesus is a direct challenge to the Western supremacist philosophies and governance of the Roman empire"--and by historical extension, the American empire. And you better believe that Fortune is a social and spiritual case for real reparations in this country.
In this book, Lisa Sharon Harper will take you by your hand--red or yellow, black, brown, or white--on a journey to revisit the past, repair the present, and reimagine the future. This can only be possible with what she calls the spiritual practice of truth seeking. A practice that defines a love that embraces justice, peace, and equity. Her advice? "We do this by seeking the truth, listening to the truth, and telling the truth." #FortuneBook

[Regina Chari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone has a story. When we share our story, we give a gift. The story that Lisa has given us is a great gift to the world. The writing of this book required a level of research that is daunting. She has written a memoir, history book, and a path for reconciliation wrapped inside of a family history that inspires the reader to fill in the gaps of their own family story.

From the moment I heard about this book, I wanted to get my hands on it. I was undone by every single page. The forward, written by Otis Moss III sets the tone and introduces how important this body of work is. The prologue and introduction took my breath away and prepared me for the work that would be done in my own heart as I read Lisa's words.

Part One taught me so much about the country of my birth. Lisa speaks about the most painful parts of American history in a way that leaves the reader in awe. She has a gift. She is a truth-teller and the truth she shares in this section makes way for our heart to absorb what is coming in part Two and for our brain and bodies to engage what she is calling us to in Part Three.

After reading and rereading these pages, I cannot think of a single reason why not to buy this book. Whether you are interested in racism or not, you will benefit from an understanding of how these constructs and this history are holding the world back. Whether you are interested in history or not, you will be drawn into the poetic and skillfully told stories that Lisa offers to you. I am not sure I have ever been so passionate about the work of another person. I truly believe that this book is prophetic, and offers us a hopeful and honest path to a better future for all of us. I do not believe there is an easy fix to the struggles around our globe. Either does Lisa. But she does offer a realistic one. Even if you don't agree with her solution, you and your family will be better if you engage in the work Lisa has birthed.

Buy a copy for yourself. Buy a copy for a friend. Buy a copy to put in the little lending library in your neighborhood. Trust me, you will want to keep your copy- it will be marked by both highlighted passages and tears. Lisa Sharon Harper, thank you for the gift of your story and for believing that we can all do better. Thank you for taking me on a journey of unlearning and relearning as I turned the pages of this beautiful book.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful! It's worth noting that the author's discussion and arguments (in the second half) are rooted in Christian tradition and scripture, so familiarity with those will enrich the reading experience.

This book is split into two parts: The first half is about the author tracing her family history and the obstacles she faces. Here we see that so many people's stories are lost, no record even of their existence. From Ch. 8, "Who benefits from the obfuscation of our stories? White nationalism does. As black, brown, and Asian stories are shattered, white narratives reign supreme."

For the second part, Lisa Sharon Harper lays out the brokenness of America's systems and how we might go about repairing it. She writes from a Christian perspective, which allows her to incorporate powerful language about struggle (Ch. 16, "White men and their allied women have learned, practiced, and passed down tactics of war in their battle against God for supremacy.") and ultimately about repentance, reconciliation, and forgiveness.

In Chapter 20, she preaches us out to the end, wow! "The peaceable kingdom already exists. We will suffer the violent backlash of the kingdoms of this world as we lean into and follow God's reign. But on the other side is glory. We manifest the kingdom by living it. Neither Rome nor the United States can pay back all that they took from those they subjugated, they simply cannot pay it all. They don't have it to give. Even if they did, it would not matter. This is a call to de-center oppressive nations and their timelines. Oppressive nations and states are not the ultimate determiner of human flourishing; God is...Do we still push for reparations and restitution? Yes. Because the relationship between oppressed and oppressor cannot be repaired until the one who has committed harm has admitted their wrongdoing, apologized, and changed course to live and move in the opposite direction. Reparation and restitution are repentance. Repentance is necessary for repair...We forgive for our own empowerment. We forgive for our own healing."

[Kristin Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

FORTUNE: HOW RACE BROKE MY FAMILY AND THE WORLD - AND HOW TO REPAIR IT ALL by Lisa Sharon Harper traces Harper’s family roots and tells the stories of her ancestors, both Black and indigenous, intermingled with the story of American history. This well-researched and intimate book shows how colonization, enslavement, rape, and a narrative of white supremacy eviscerated Harper’s family tree in profound ways.

While I, like many of you, have read many fiction and nonfiction books about the foundational sin of slavery, the effects of racist laws throughout US history, and the genocide of indigenous Americans, this narrative brought to life these harms and evils in a much more personal way as Harper documents how members of her family were affected. It reminded me of Yaa Gyasi’s HOMEGOING but in non-fiction format in the way that each successive generation offers a snapshot into that period of history.

Harper’s voice is authoritative and powerful. The research she has done both on our nation’s history as well as using innovative DNA tracing techniques to piece together her family’s history is really tremendous. This is a book where I recommend reading the audiobook and physical book simultaneously, as Harper narrates it herself, and her passion really comes through, but having the physical book to refer to people and facts and dates (and photos!) is very helpful.

As a Christian activist, Harper uses faith concepts to frame her call to action in the last part of the book. She makes the case for truth telling and reparations in order counteract the hidden costs of white supremacy and pave a path forward.

This book is Harper’s effort to reclaim her family’s story, lost for so many decades. In doing so, she helps us better understand the story of our nation. I’m so thankful for this book - it’s one I plan to reread and refer to. Harper is such a wise, thoughtful, and visionary leader.

Thank you to @brazospress for the gifted copy!

[Rod White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice to hear from a Philly woman who renewed her claim to her ancestral neighborhood right down the street from my office! Harper is direct, traumatized and carrying the now-told pain of generations of her family. Her family tree reaches back to the very beginnings of the racialized horror of the United States.

She is a good story teller and the book moves quickly. Each generation reveals the devastation of white supremacy, exercised violently and otherwise, legally and illegally. I've read a number of these stories, but I think this one does the best job.

Here's a quote from the last page:

"There are two paths set before the oppressed: One path leads to rage, compounded pain, sickness, and death. The other leads to the Beloved Community. On that road there is truth-seeking, truth-listening, and truth-telling. There is reparation and equity. And there is mercy—release. For the sake of my body and soul and the bodies and souls of my family’s descendants to the tenth generation from me, I choose the Beloved Community.

For readers in European bodies, you also have a choice. You can continue your war for supremacy against the image of God on earth. You can resist God’s Beloved Community; resist truth, resist equity, resist justice, and resist mercy. You can try to maintain your space at the top of a crumbling racial hierarchy. You won’t be there long. You are already in the global minority. Within one generation you will be in the minority in the United States as well. When that day comes, you can wage war or you can lean into truth, lean into repentance and repair, and allow yourselves to be released—forgiven.

Only then can we find a new way of being together in the world."

[Emily Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are serious about Racial Reconciliation then this book is for you! If you are an ally supporting people of color who have been abused and oppressed and discriminated against for centuries, then this book is for you! If you are curious, but not convinced then Lisa Sharon Harper is the perfect guide and teacher. Her family history (every bit of oppression has touched her family in some way) lends her the credentials to speak into how race broke the world, in a powerful and gripping way.

Harper says we must all be partakers in truth-seeking, truth-listening and truth-telling to repair what race has broke. We must be active in seeking the truth about our country's history. It's not pretty, in fact it's pretty ugly. But we need to bathed in historical truth to move beyond race. We must be active listeners to those whose lives have been brutalized and debilitated at the hands of White Dominant Culture. It is not easy listening, people. Harper's own ancestors, enslaved and devalued again and again, are the storytellers of truth we must listen to. And then, as Maya Angelou said, "...when you know better, do better." That's where we readers come into truth-telling. This book will inspire us to become allied truth-tellers in the hopes of bringing reconciliation and reparation to our world so that all of God's image bearers (yes, that's ALL of us!) can flourish! Oh, to see that day!

[Angela Jones]

I wept reading this book. Lisa shares a very personal history of her ancestry and how race broke her family, how the layers of oppression have impacted every generation and is still hanging over Lisa and her family today. Along the way she’s intertwined our country’s history of enslavement and our legal system and religion and the evangelical church and racialized trauma and colonization. I’ve learned so much. I’ve connected, and my empathy and emotions are overflowing.

I found myself thinking about my own ancestors: Where were they when Lisa’s family was being disenfranchised? Were they slave owners? How did they exercise dominion over Black people? Why don’t I know what role my ancestors played in this? Why was it never talked about in my family? What role do I have in the repair of hundreds of years of racism in this country?

When a person listens to others’ personal experiences and stories, it can change us. It’s connection. It can fill us with empathy, love, anger, curiosity, enough that it brings about action in us. It makes us want to reach out and repair it. Connection is key. We find that in storytelling. Lisa has told a beautifully tragic, important story here.

“Yes, Child….yes.”

Shalom.

[Deborah Masten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fortune is equally masterful storytelling and truth telling. The intricate tapestry of racial history, personal family history and present day answers to 500 year old questions is mind blowing. Lisa Sharon Harper’s ability to both investigate her family’s complex story while simultaneously demonstrating the devastating legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and even the recent January 6th Insurrection attempt is nothing short of researched brilliance. The amount of detailed U.S. history and legal strategies that keep systemic racism and white supremacy alive and well is staggering. Her very personal conservative faith deconstruction and decolonizing will resonate with many. Her insights on repairing what race broke will remind you of what it means to pursue hard questions and remain hopeful in a God with answers. This book will likely be used widely in classrooms worldwide. It feels like I earned a few college credits just reading it! She literally produced crib notes for every important aspect of race from its inception! And managed to honor the strength, beauty and resilience of her family at the same time. Pure genius!

[Lisa Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is such an important read, but also a heavy and eye-opening one. Lisa Sharon Harper walks through the story of her ancestors and how slavery and racial hierarchy effected each generation. Story connects us to her family and what they went through. We see how different branches of her family are treated differently for a variety of reasons including how they look, where they live, what the laws are at the time and how they are respected/treated. At the end she gathers everything together to share her look at what we need to do to "repair what race broke in our country." While she comes with a Christian background, I feel that this book is for anyone who wants to learn more and take a hard look at how we got where we are. This book is not something that you can read in one sitting, but a slow read that you wrestle with as you process it. I am thankful to Lisa for her willingness to share her family's story and to give insight to working towards some sort of repair.

[Ryan George · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lisa Sharon Harper’s book wrecked me. It took me weeks to finish it. I had to set its heartbreaking details aside before gaining courage again to hear the stories of her family’s four centuries on North America, first as slaves and then as the victims of violent racism, dehumanizing white supremacy, and agents of change. I cannot imagine the amount of research and curation this manuscript required nor the amount of therapy it took to write these stories from a healthy place. Harper’s storytelling proves haunting and engrossing, passionate and beautiful, sad and hopeful. I didn’t expect the ending and was blown away by the power of Jesus’ love that her closing chapter demonstrates. I’m grateful to have had my heartbroken by this incredible manuscript. As I read news headlines and see white supremacy in my social media feeds, I wish more people would invite their hearts to be broken from voices with different stories and pasts than their own.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lisa Sharon Harper opens this work defining the narrative gap, the space between the story we tell ourselves and what really happened. Our generational stories form us. By sharing the stories of her ancestors, Lisa gives us an account of how race broke her family and how it breaks the world. She points out that we have to understand how it broke so we can understand how to fix it. She then takes us on a wonderful journey with her ancestors challenging us along the way to explore our own stories. Through their stories and the history she shares you will learn and be challenged. The "what really happened" parts of the story are what we need to grapple with and understand. But she doesn't stop there. She encourages us to learn how we can be a part of the solution. This is a masterful work that will leave you challenged to continue the work.

[Brian C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lisa Sharon Harper had masterfully weaved the tale of her ancestors with the history of race in America. We see first hand how racial hierarchy, and slave-ocracy impacted her ancestors leading to a telling of US racial history that no history book can do on its own. In the last part of the book she weaves all these themes together to give a compelling and challenging look at what is necessary to “repair what race broke in our country.” Her distinctly Christian comments on the integral role of truth-telling and forgiveness in the process of repair seem to me to be a particularly poignant and significant contribution to the Christian community. I am so thankful for her bravery and her prophetic voice on behalf of the Body of Christ.

[Felicia Melian · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Fortune, Lisa Sharon Harper tells how race broke the world through the stories of 10 generations of her own family! It at the same time traces a personal and a cultural history: an undertaking that culminates in analysis of how repair & healing may (and must) come to us all.

Lisa masterfully weaves all this together - intentional all the way through, down to the smallest detail.

This is not a book you read in one sitting. It's one that requires marination and deep reflection.

It will tug at your heart strings and you'll want to look away from the pain these pages hold at points. But it will also fill your soul with joy and push you toward deeper human connection! You'll be glad you gave it your time and undivided attention.

Last thing I'll say is: I've never read such a heartfelt and honoring acknowledgements - had me in tears. Don't skip!

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

For Anti-Racism work (in my opinion)
Phil Vischer's video of history of racism in America is 101,
Austin Channing Brown's I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness is 201,
Ta-nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me is 300 level,
and this book is 400 or graduate level.
Wow, this is a hard book to read (and I'm sure harder to live). LSH, who I've heard on several podcasts, tells her family's story in such beautiful but heart-wrenching details. The forward and first chapter was very academic. I read slowly and am glad I made it to the end. She has some really good, thoughtful ideas and I hope more people read this.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World and How to Repair It All
Written and narrated by Lisa Sharon Harper
Tantor Media, 2022

It took me a long time to listen to the whole book because so much of it was heartbreakingly painful, but I kept coming back and I’m so very glad I did. I learned so much from Harper’s honest reflections on her family history, a history which many of us have never heard and absolutely need to know.

Here’s the link to my AudioFile review: https://www.audiofilemagazine.com/rev...

[Drick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lisa Sharon Harper set out to learn about her family history and bring to light the struggles and joys of her ancestors. At the same time, she saw that the struggles her ancestors faced were the same struggles and challenges faced by millions of Africans forced to serve as slaves.

She concludes the book with chapters on reparations, forgiveness, and the promise of the beloved community. Her writing at the and got very spiritual and theological but not particularly practical. Even so, Harper is an excellent writer NS AHW XHllwnges us to see that our histories and legacies as Black and White are intertwined.

[Michael Donahoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book. It was hard to read of the many injustices, discrimination and hatred shown to the black/brown people of this country since its inception. So many interesting stories of times past and a great way to learn some of this country's history and dark past in the way it treated those who were not white-skinned privileged people. The author uses many personal stories of her family and gives us some positives as to what can be done to overcome the results of racism and discrimination. I found this book to be very interesting and informative.

[Krystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed Harper's deep dive into tracing her family and their stories through the founding of the United States and everything that was done, and continues to this day, to enslave, subject, and dismiss the story of Black people in that founding and the continuing American story. I am not a religious person so, at times, the book leaned a little too far in that direction for me but I expected it as Harper is a well-known faith leader and I respected hearing that perspective in the ongoing discussion of how can we heal and fix the world in which we live.

[Allison Berkson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite reads of the year. As someone who lives in a state with 80% white (non-hispanic) population and less than 1% black population, I am always seeking ways to hear the perspectives of people who have different experiences than I do. I would absolutely recommend this to someone just starting to learn about why race matters in our history and to those who have been learning for awhile. Lisa does a great job weaving the history and the impact on real people in her life. Memoirs are a hard genre to get right and this was one of the best I have read in awhile.