Come Walk with Me

Foreward

Come walk with me, John J. Johnson invites in the title of his memoir, this memoir.

Yes, do walk with him. 

It is a journey well worth taking, a journey you won't forget ... from the cruelties and disparities of segregated small town America to the momentous and breathtaking breakthroughs in civil rights throughout the land ... Mr. Johnson, participant and eyewitness, tells these stories through his own remarkable life and the lives of family members, friends and colleagues who shared the walk with him ... and he tells these stories through remarkable organizations he joined and led, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. 

This is Black history, American history, up close and personal, Mr. Johnson fleshing out and animating the brave, largely unknown citizens who not only defied unjust, unfair, race-based laws designed to subjugate but also changed those laws ... and who put their lives, fortunes and sacred honor on the line for a country whose founding documents excluded them, even punished them. The walkers in this journey believed in a country that for too long didn't believe in them. And this is the great story, still a work in progress, written by a Kentuckian with Kentucky people and places in the prime positions. 

Beyond that, Mr. Johnson's "Come Walk With Me" also is a memorable love letter to his late wife and blended family, as well as extended family members, who have had a sustaining impact on his impactful life.

The span and scope of personal and institutional history in "Come Walk With Me" is matched only by the span and scope of American life addressed by Mr. Johnson, and people like him, in their work with these civil rights organizations: The right to vote, the right to work, the right to education, the right to assemble, the right to be treated with fairness and dignity no matter skin color, gender or orientation, the right to equal opportunity throughout the spectrum of American life, inalienable rights, allegedly for all of us ... the people who populate "Come Walk With Me" have been there, from farm fields to board rooms and every place in between, working tirelessly, sometimes at great personal cost and risk. And they have delivered. 

Theirs is a story all Americans should be taught and should learn, a story for which all Americans should be grateful and proud.  Mr. Johnson and those in his book have given life to an American dream many of us took for granted, and they have made it real in a way that should stir all souls. 

The book is about Mr. Johnson's life and efforts, but he is conscientious in sharing the names of his sisters and brothers who have pursued and worked to ensure liberty and justice for all. These are names of people who showed up, when it was hard, even when it was dangerous, and they show up here, too, a roll call of people who never flagged in their belief of our "more perfect union," nor in the heroic work required for progress in that noblest quest for equality and equity. 

Come, walk with them. 

And be inspired add your hands and feet to the ongoing journey. 

- Pam Platt