Damaged Heritage

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 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, Chester would eventually meet Sheila L. Walker, a descendant of African-American victims of the Massacre.  She herself had also been on her own migration in 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 Chester offers a blueprint for how our pluralistic society can at last acknowledge—and deal with— damaged heritage and follow a path to true healing.