J. Chester Johnson

J. Chester Johnson is a poet, essayist, and translator. He has written extensively on race and civil rights, composing the Litany for the National Day of Repentance (October 4, 2008) when the Episcopal Church formally apologized for its role in transatlantic slavery and related evils. Several of his writings are part of the J. Chester Johnson Collection in the Civil Rights Archives at Queens College, the alma mater of Andrew Goodman, one of three martyrs murdered by white supremacists in Mississippi during Freedom Summer. One of the fifteen writers selected to be showcased in October, 2019 for the inaugural Harvard Alumni Authors’ Book Fair, he was educated at Harvard College and the University of Arkansas (Distinguished Alumnus Award, 2010). Previously, Johnson has written for Literary Matters.