The Song and the Silence

A Story About Family, Race, and What Was Revealed in a Small Town in the Mississippi Delta While Searching for Booker Wright

By: Yvette Johnson

Narrated by: Robin Miles

"Have to keep that smile", said Booker Wright in the 1966 NBC documentary Mississippi: A Self-Portrait. At the time Wright was a waiter in a Whites-only restaurant and a local business owner who would become an unwitting icon of the civil rights movement. For he did the unthinkable: Before a national audience, he described what life was truly like for the Black people of Greenwood, Mississippi.

Shortly after these remarks aired on television, life for Booker took a turn for the worse.

And so began the story that has inspired Yvette Johnson to explore her grandfather's life - as well as her own feelings on race - in this fascinating memoir. Born a year after Wright's death and raised in a wealthy San Diego neighborhood, Johnson admits she never had to confront race the way Southern Blacks did in the 1960s. Compelled to learn more about her roots, she travels back to Greenwood, Mississippi, a beautiful Southern town steeped in secrets and a scarred past, to interview family members about the real Booker Wright. As she uncovers her grandfather's fascinating story and gets closer to the truth behind his murder, she also confronts her own conflicted feelings surrounding race, family, forgiveness, and faith.

Told with powerful insights and harrowing details of civil rights-era Mississippi, The Song and the Silence is an amazing chronicle of one woman's five-year journey in pursuit of the past - and hope for tomorrow.

©2017 Yvette Johnson (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

revealing your past could be exciting

A story about Booker Wright, a southern small town (Greenwood, Mississippi) hero and civil rights icon, and Race relations. The story is brought to us from his granddaughter, who stumbled upon his life/story. Booker ran his own business in the Mississippi Delta in the mornings and evenings he waited tables for a whites only restaurant (Lucas), which is still operating today. They figured Blacks couldn't read nor write, so they made the waiters sing the menu. One day a news/journalist was dining there and Booker spoke his peace about life for Black people of Greenwood, Mississippi, not knowing that they were the only ones living in civil unrest, segregation, and racism. You can look at the footage, it's called “Have to keep that smile,” Booker Wright said in the 1966 NBC documentary Mississippi: A Self-Portrait. This book addressed so much, things sweep under rugs in families, and towns. Even Bookers murder.....
#Book34of2021 #BookLover #bookworm #whatsnext

A fine narration of a excellent book!

This story is profoundly written with heart and soul - the narration is outstanding. I am so glad I purchased the book and its Audible companion.

Fantastic.

An honest and real portrayal of a complicated subject. part history, part memoir, all moving.

Greenwood is still Greenwood

The story was as much about the author’s transformation as her grandfather’s life. I have spent a week in Greenwood and the surrounding area. After returning home, I was depressed for a very long while. I was able to see how my ancestors chose to leave the south for the relative freedom of Chicago.

Memorable

Captures the times and culture of 20th Century race relations in the South in evocative, elegant, thought-provoking language. Excellent examination of prejudice in both White and Black communities while highlighting the multigenerational suffering experienced by Black persons thru the oppressive power of institutionalized racism still in place in many political, social, and religious organizations but most of all in the human heart