KIM JOHNSON
Author Speaker Educator
THIS IS MY AMERICA
The Hate U Give meets Just Mercy in this unflinching yet uplifting first novel that explores the racist injustices in the American justice system.
“Incredible and searing.” —Nic Stone, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin
BIO
KIM JOHNSON held leadership positions in social justice organizations as a teen and in college. She’s now a college administrator who maintains civic engagement throughout the community while also mentoring Black student activists and leaders. She is also the graduate advisor and member of an historically Black sorority. This Is My America is her debut novel and explores racial injustice against innocent Black men who are criminally sentenced and the families left behind to pick up the pieces. She holds degrees from the University of Oregon and the University of Maryland, College Park.
BOOKS
THIS IS MY AMERICA
Every week, seventeen-year-old Tracy Beaumont writes letters to Innocence X, asking them to help her father, an innocent Black man on death row. After seven years, Tracy is running out of time—her dad has 267 days left.
Then one night changes everything. The police arrive, pounding on the door, and Tracy’s older brother, Jamal, goes from being a bright, promising track star to a “thug” on the run, accused of killing a white girl. Determined to save her brother, Tracy investigates what really happened between Jamal and Angela down at the Pike. And as Tracy discovers the racist history that still haunts her small town’s present, she begins to wonder if she’s lighting the torch that will illuminate her family’s innocence . . . or lighting the fuse that will cause her world to explode.
Kim Johnson’s gripping debut is a revelation—an incendiary, crucial look at the American justice system delivered as an uplifting read where love conquers hate and justice is delivered in the face of injustice.
THIS IS MY AMERICA is planned for publication July 28, 2020 by Random House Children’s Books.
MEDIA
Get Underlined
“It wasn’t about the race of his attorney, but about being a Black man on trial in a town that never accepted us. Everyone wanted an answer to a heinous crime, and it was easier to think it was an outsider—someone ‘not like them.’”
REPRESENTATION
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