Best Book of 1900: The Autobiography of Dr William Henry Johnson for Granta

At the end of 2016 after the election when the world felt shattered, Granta asked me and several other writers for our best book of the year. Of any year. I picked one from 1900. The Autobiography of William H Johnson. He is, I wrote for them, “now a ghost of history; he doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, but I can’t let him disappear.” He fought in the Civil War, campaigned for equal rights, was a barber in Albany NY, was friends with Frederick Douglass, stood guard over John Brown’s body, volunteered to fight with Brown. And grew up in my hometown, then left for an education, for freedom and to fight… Read about him here.