When the Stars Begin to Fall: Overcoming Racism and Renewing the Promise of America

Theodore R. Johnson

Feb 2023 · Atlantic Monthly Press

About this ebook

A "persuasive . . . heartfelt and vividly written" call to counter systemic racism and build national solidarity in America ( Publishers Weekly).
The American Promise enshrined in our Constitution states that all men and women are inherently equal. And yet racism continues to corrode our society. If we cannot overcome it, Theodore Johnson argues, the promise that made America unique on Earth will have died. In When the Stars Begin to Fall, Johnson presents a compelling blueprint for the kind of national solidarity necessary to mitigate racism.
Weaving together history, personal memories, and his family's multi-generational experiences with racism, Johnson posits that solutions can be found in the exceptional citizenship long practiced in Black America. Understanding that racism is a structural crime of the state, he argues that overcoming it requires us to recognize that a color-conscious society—not a color-blind one—is the true fulfillment of the American Promise.
Fueled by Johnson's ultimate faith in the American project, grounded in his family's longstanding optimism and his own military service, When the Stars Begin to Fall is an urgent call to undertake the process of overcoming what has long seemed intractable.

Ratings and reviews

I received a free electronic copy of When the Stars Begin to Fall from Netgalley, Theodore Roosevelt Johnson, and Atlantic Monthly Press. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this work of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. Theodore Roosevelt Johnson brings to this work a retrospective of the American Promise through the history and eyes of a black man, and a tremendous amount of faith in the premise that equality is doable in our society. I am white with various historical strains of Southern native Americans. Any time I felt that Johnson's statements seemed excessive or skewed from a black agenda, I simply substituted another definition of any American to make it all fall into shape. Native American. Single parent. Immigrant. Woman, for crying out loud. I only hope he is right in predicting the coming of true equality in our world. It is long overdue. This is a book I am pleased to recommend to friends and family.

About the author

Theodore R. Johnson is a Senior Advisor at New America, leading its flagship Us@250 initiative marking the nation’s semiquincentennial, and a writer at The Bulwark. Prior to joining New America, he was a senior fellow and Director of the Fellows Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, where he undertook research on race, politics, and American identity. He is a retired Commander in the United States Navy, serving for twenty years in a variety of positions, including as a White House Fellow in the first Obama administration and as speechwriter to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His work on race relations has appeared in prominent national publications across the political spectrum, including the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and National Review, among others.

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