Walter Johnson

WALTER JOHNSON—a founding member of the Commonwealth Project, which brings together the efforts of academics, artists, and activists in support of arts-based social action in St. Louis—teaches history and directs the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University. He has written for the Boston Review, where he is a contributing editor, Dissent, the Times Literary Supplement, Raritan, and the New York Times, and is the author of two books, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market and River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Mississippi Valley's Cotton Kingdom. By the Rivers of Babylon: St. Louis and the Broken Heart of American History will be published in the spring of 2020.

- p. 211, The Best American Essays 2019.