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Yvette Johnson

Biography

Yvette Johnson

Yvette Johnson is a writer, film producer and speaker. She coproduced the documentary Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story, which premiered at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Yvette Johnson

Books by Yvette Johnson

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 - Memoir, Nonfiction

“Have to keep that smile,” Booker Wright said in the 1966 NBC documentary “Mississippi: A Self-Portrait.” The ripple effect from his remarks would cement Booker as a civil rights icon because he did the unthinkable: before a national audience, Wright described what life truly was like for the Black people of Greenwood, Mississippi. Four decades later, Yvette Johnson, Wright’s granddaughter, finds footage of the controversial documentary. Compelled to learn more about her roots, she travels to Greenwood, Mississippi. As she uncovers her grandfather’s compelling story and gets closer to the truth behind his murder, she also confronts her own conflicted feelings surrounding race, family and forgiveness.