Exceptional

Fletcher Johnson

Description

It didn't matter that Fletcher Johnson starred in the NCAA, played in the NBA, and pioneered American participation in European basketball. It didn't matter that he qualified as a cardio-thoracic and general surgeon in the United States, at that time one of only four African Americans to work as heart surgeons. Or that he earned pharmacy and medical degrees in Italy and Switzerland, mastering Italian and French to complete his studies. In the eyes of his white competitors in the United States, he was still just a black man who could be run out of medical practice when he began to build a medical mall and day surgery facility in New York. Fletcher's upbringing in a New Jersey factory town, his struggles to reach the top of sports and medicine, and his continuing faith in America, in spite of everything against him, make his autobiography compelling reading and a significant contribution to medical and sports history.

Sujets

• Black Studies
• Medical
• HISTORY
• Baloncesto
• Medical History
• Africana studies
• History of sport
• History of the United States
• Spirituality
• Medicine
• History of the Americas
• Basketball
• United States
• American History
• Basket-ball

Informations

• Publié par: Wipf and Stock Publishers
• Date de parution: 10 avril 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781725264502
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Exceptional
The Autobiography of Fletcher Johnson, MD, Heart Surgeon, NCAA Star, NBA Pro, and Civil Rights Warrior
Fletcher Johnson, MD
Compiled and Edited by Thomas Trzyna



Exceptional
The Autobiography of Fletcher Johnson, MD, Heart Surgeon, NCAA Star, NBA Pro, and Civil Rights Warrior
Copyright © 2020 Fletcher Johnson. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8 th Ave., Suite 3 , Eugene, OR 97401 .
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8 th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-6448-9
hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-6449-6
ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-6450-2
Manufactured in the U.S.A. 02/28/20
Table of Contents Title Page Preface Chapter 1: Returning to America Chapter 2: Englewood Chapter 3: Armory Street: A Microcosm of America Chapter 4: Moving Downstairs and Going to Work Chapter 5: High School and a False Start Chapter 6: Duquesne Chapter 7: Gretchen and Grace Chapter 8: Pro-Basketball and the Air Force Chapter 9: Italy Chapter 10: Switzerland and Medical School Chapter 11: An American Physician Chapter 12: Jeanne Chapter 13: Settling In Chapter 14: Ambush and Aftermath Chapter 15: Invictus


Preface
Born in 1931 , Fletcher Johnson succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 2008 , at the age of 77 , leaving his wife Jeanne and their sons Jaime and Benjamin. Jeanne now works as a nurse specially accredited to work with deep and incurable wounds. Jaime is a company representative for a pacemaker manufacturer. After a career in banking, Ben is now an award-winning brew-master at the Philipsburg Brewery in Montana. Fletcher’s son by his first marriage, Chino, was a camera man for Ted Koppel and continues to work in film. His daughter Renee is deceased. In spite of the terrible ordeal of the false charges brought against him and ten years of litigation, Fletcher built his medical mall, prospered in his practice, and was showered with accolades and awards. His marriage remained strong, and his children succeeded in their goals.
The skeleton of this autobiography was transcribed by Jeanne’s sister Elin, who courageously worked with Fletcher’s large spiral-bound notebooks that included a handwritten draft of his early life. Fletcher’s handwriting is huge and sprawling. Other fragmentary drafts were transcribed from dictations by medical typists. The material he wrote and edited himself by hand is remarkable for its power, vocabulary, and sometimes amazing choices of words. There are sixteen separate fragments. The editor also consulted two published magazine interviews, basketball magazine notices, an essay on the speech that Adlai Stevenson autographed and gave to Fletcher, an essay Fletcher wrote as part of his work on the local school board, his curriculum vitae, some family correspondence, legal correspondence, and his medical thesis published in French. The objective from the start was to use Fletcher’s own words and to compile and edit an autobiography, rather than to write a biography using additional sources from interviews and from the six large boxes of records he left. Some names have been changed to allow past conflicts to sleep. Our commitment was to let Fletcher speak and to respect all his values and viewpoints. With Jeanne’s approval, the editor added chapter headings and about two pages of contextualizing, transitional, and emphasizing sentences. The editorial task chiefly consisted of organizing, deleting redundancies, and being vigilant to include every fresh anecdote and reflection from the many thematically and chronologically overlapping drafts. The drafts were woven together chronologically. Dr. Bill Purcell carefully read the manuscript and corrected many names that were transcribed inaccurately.
The editor had the privilege of meeting Fletcher Johnson only twice, once in 1972 and again in about 1 979 . The editor’s wife Martha was a good friend of Jeanne when she finished high school in South Pasadena, California. They have continued to be close. At our first meeting, Fletcher spoke about his intention to write an autobiography, and I offered what little help I could muster. Ten years after Fletcher’s death, Jeanne was ready for someone to work with the drafts. That task has been a joy, an honor and a mission. My own career included some forty years of teaching American ethnic literatures at various colleges. I claim no expertise. However, I do not believe I have encountered a book as exceptional as this. Fletcher’s early life reads like passages from Richard Wright. Toward the end of the book, he is a sophisticated and masterful entrepreneur and physician who faces a blunt racist attack by an institution afraid of open competition.
Fletcher builds on two themes to be found in every African American autobiography: the importance of hard work and of education as liberating forces. His story covers a transitional period for African America, from the 1930 s through 1998 , a period of oppression, activism, hope and disappointment. He offers important insights into the integration of sports, into the challenges facing blacks who wished to practice medicine, into the politics of medical practice, and into his successful inter-racial marriage, which Jeanne and Fletcher sealed at a time when their choice was still highly controversial. His brief and challenging dialogue with Martin Luther King gives us a picture of views held by those who did not fully support non-violent change. Fletcher remained a strong believer in American exceptionalism, in spite of the racism he faced throughout his life. He also represents an important strain of African American religious conservatism. In the end, his story is framed by its first chapter. How does it continue to be possible for such a man, an NCAA star, an NBA pro, a multi-lingual European basketball phenomenon, a trained pharmacist, a European-educated heart surgeon, to come home to America after eight and half years of success to be met by people who saw him as nothing other than an example of the meanest word in their vocabulary? His capacity simply to survive his ordeals is stunning.
Fletcher Johnson’s remarkable story deserves to be studied, to be analyzed and discussed, and to be taught in schools. It is inspiring for anyone who wants to rise, whether in sports, medicine or any other endeavor. He provides us with a detailed anatomy of institutional racism. His autobiography is strong testimony to the persi stence of racism in America and to the extraordinary strength and courage that has enabled African Americans to contribute so richly and profoundly to every art, science and profession. We need to continue that “larger conversation” he recommends about race and equity.
Thomas Trzyna, Seattle, 2020 .


Returning to America
The beginning. Whoever told you men were created equal was flat out wrong. Men never are equal, never have been equal, and never will be equal.
Granted, the means by which men are created are equal no matter what mystical, spiritual, faith-based system or lack of one you may believe in. The simple biological truth is that when an egg is penetrated by a sperm, a human being is created. This act is the same for all human beings. Once this act is completed, no human being is precisely like any other, one might say EQUAL. Genes, chromosomes, climate and socio-economic environments blend to make one individual different from another. Through these factors people become unequal in their intellect, physical appearance, physical strength, skills, talents, morals, priorities and their ability to adapt to the changing environment.
Boatloads of anthropologists will tell you that humanity started in deepest Africa, often dubbed the dark or black continent. The gradations of skin color had to do with the multiple mutations people had to undergo to survive the drastic climate and terrain changes they encountered as they migrated to the far corners of the Earth. I view the sun, the light of the world, as the great arbitrator in determining skin color and many of the other physical differences among the white, yellow, brown, red and black races. The closer one comes to the equator, the darker the skin. As one ventures further from the equator, the directness of the sun decreases and there is not the same need for protective pigments, and thus the skin becomes lighter. Consider the huge white polar bears of the North Pole and compare them to the large, black grizzly bears found in the USA. Regard the deer and their spring and summer coats which are tan to red, compared to the gray browns of wintertime that closely match the bare and leafless winter trees.
I can assure you that several inches inside the nose, mouth, vagina and rectum of a Japanese, Polynesian, Navajo, Swedish or Manhattan black, tissues are the same color—pink. Furthermore, open the chest cavity and the heart, lungs, esophagus, and thymus are the same color in every human race. The same goes for the abdominal cavity—the stomach, liver, spleen, kidneys and intestines large and small. Science has proven that a black man’s heart can be transplanted and function in a white man. Successful organ transplant does not depend on the skin color of the donor or the recipient. No matter what your parents, teachers, preachers, rabbis or anyone else taught you to believe, the bare-knuckle truth is that skin color does not confer a superior intellect or greater physical prowess.
God, only God, could have made this day.