truly inspires us. It isn't often we meet a person who
serves as a mentor and whom we can call a good friend.
the friendship he developed with eighty-seven-year-old Fred
Montgomery when he was doing research for a feature story
on the Alex Haley Museum. When Johnson met the former
sharecropper, he discovered a man with a story of his own.
Johnson tells this story in his book, Finding the Good. I
recently had the opportunity to talk to Lucas Johnson about his
experiences with Mr. Montgomery.
Tennessee, where Haley often spent his summers as a child. I was put
in contact with Mr. Montgomery, Haley's childhood friend and curator of
the museum. I remember our first meeting. He was a soft-spoken, polite
man, yet there was a quiet strength about him. When he took me on a tour
of the museum, he wove in stories about his childhood with Haley and
growing up in the Jim Crow era. At times he became emotional, and those
listening to him, myself included, were moved as well. One story dealt with
wanting to go to the one-room school building where the black children
gathered to try to better themselves, but instead he had to pick cotton in
the fields. I ended up doing a story on him for The Associated Press and
another for Guideposts magazine. After the articles were published, Mr.
Montgomery and I became close. I had lost my grandfather to cancer the
year before, and Mr. Montgomery sort of took his place. One time when I
visited Mr. Montgomery in Henning, he told me Haley had planned to write
a book about him, and he pulled out the audio recordings Haley had made
interviewing him. Haley died before he could begin writing the book. Mr.
Montgomery asked if I would complete the work. I thought about it for a
couple weeks then told him I would. Because we had become close, and
I had already written about him, I wrote the book from my perspective.
Throughout the book, I parallel my life experiences with things that
happened to Mr. Montgomery, particularly with regard to racism. He talked
about forgiving those who hated him simply for the color of his skin. Mr.
Montgomery said that regardless of the situation, we have to let go of the
hate--or it will kill us.