I appreciated the idea that the author presents that who we are comes, at least in part, from our ancestors, and I really loved the stories she weaved about her own family. I appreciate her optimism about the future. The book made me think a lot more about the stories I've heard about my own family, and to think through what life might have been like for them several generations ago.

An excellent way to learn history, and its highly personal effects on family and heritage. This is an important read.

This winter, I had the opportunity to be a member of the launch team for Lisa Sharon Harper's compelling new work, "Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World--and How to Repair It All." If you are already a fan of LSH, let me just say... she has leveled up once again!
This autobiographical/genealogically rooted narrative guides the reader on a powerful journey through America's history that compels them to consider how their own family's story intersects with the racial trauma of Lisa's family.

Lisa Sharon Harper delves deep into her family history, tracing her roots back as far as possible in spite of incomplete records. She shares her findings in an emotional narrative, guiding the reader from the earliest origins of her family lineage to the present day and her own upbringing. The stories in this narrative are not unique to her family and are examples of the realities that can be found in the unspoken history of enslavement and its impact on racial issues today. Harper brings to light a history that many have chosen to ignore, and even ban, but she also offers a path to reconciliation and restoration if leaders would choose to follow it.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the ARC.

Everyone has a story. When we share our story, we give a gift. The story that Lisa has given us is a great gift to the world. The writing of this book required a level of research that is daunting. She has written a memoir, history book, and a path for reconciliation wrapped inside of a family history that inspires the reader to fill in the gaps of their own family story.

From the moment I heard about this book, I wanted to get my hands on it. I was undone by every single page. The forward, written by Otis Moss III sets the tone and introduces how important this body of work is. The prologue and introduction took my breath away and prepared me for the work that would be done in my own heart as I read Lisa's words.

Part One taught me so much about the country of my birth. Lisa speaks about the most painful parts of American history in a way that leaves the reader in awe. She has a gift. She is a truth-teller and the truth she shares in this section makes way for our heart to absorb what is coming in part Two and for our brain and bodies to engage what she is calling us to in Part Three.

After reading and rereading these pages, I cannot think of a single reason why not to buy this book. Whether you are interested in racism or not, you will benefit from an understanding of how these constructs and this history are holding the world back. Whether you are interested in history or not, you will be drawn into the poetic and skillfully told stories that Lisa offers to you. I am not sure I have ever been so passionate about the work of another person. I truly believe that this book is prophetic, and offers us a hopeful and honest path to a better future for all of us. I do not believe there is an easy fix to the struggles around our globe. Either does Lisa. But she does offer a realistic one. Even if you don't agree with her solution, you and your family will be better if you engage in the work Lisa has birthed.

Buy a copy for yourself. Buy a copy for a friend. Buy a copy to put in the little lending library in your neighborhood. Trust me, you will want to keep your copy- it will be marked by both highlighted passages and tears. Lisa Sharon Harper, thank you for the gift of your story and for believing that we can all do better. Thank you for taking me on a journey of unlearning and relearning as I turned the pages of this beautiful book.

The publisher made a copy of this book available via Netgalley. This is my honest review.

In Fortune: How Race Broke My Family And My World And How to Heal It All, Lisa Sharon Harper invites us to join her search for her roots of ancestral slavery. Through research and oral family history, she envisions the psychological fortitude evinced by her ancestors abducted from African in 1681. Harper weaves history and the personal narrative of her great-great-grandmother Fortune to trace how Eurocentric America used legislation to institutionalize slavery. Harper's heart-wrenching poetic prose reveals how Fortune's personal history is shaped by American history: "Her teenage body absorbed the wrath of the first race, gender, and citizenship laws in this land." To be blunt, her research traces how white supremacy codified racism in the name of economy at the expense of specific non-white lives, families, and generations of un-lived freedom.
But this is not a history book set to demonize or divide white America. Far from it, this is a manifesto of compassion and a call to forgive and repair our broken connection, the divine connection we share as human beings all made in the image of God. Harper's call to awareness and acknowledgement contends that the real problem isn't in the slave past of America, but in the institutional and cultural racism that created it and still insidiously underpins the current climate in America. This is manifested in social concerns like real estate, health care, environmental infrastructure, voting rights, and educational inequities that are enforced by coded legislation.
"We cannot repair the collective until we know when and how we broke it." Harper then tells us how we broke it, and somehow does so with the language of love and justice and faith. The family secrets she shares and the personal trauma she bears are astoundingly void of rage and revenge. Instead, with a stubborn faith, she insists that our shared Imago Dei is reason enough to begin to forgive and repair the physical, cultural, and institutional violence of oppression.
Make no mistake. This is a book that addresses the social justice issues of racism with a spiritual magnifying glass. It is more than an idealistic dream list for an American social utopia. Harper returns again and again to the radical message of Jesus that denounces the oppression of empire, exposes the hypocrisy of legalistic religion, and resurrects the communion of Imago Dei in all of us. She affirms, "The far flung love of Jesus is a direct challenge to the Western supremacist philosophies and governance of the Roman empire"--and by historical extension, the American empire. And you better believe that Fortune is a social and spiritual case for real reparations in this country.
In this book, Lisa Sharon Harper will take you by your hand--red or yellow, black, brown, or white--on a journey to revisit the past, repair the present, and reimagine the future. This can only be possible with what she calls the spiritual practice of truth seeking. A practice that defines a love that embraces justice, peace, and equity. Her advice? "We do this by seeking the truth, listening to the truth, and telling the truth." #FortuneBook

As an adult with a disability, I've often expressed that while eugenics laws are, for the most part, a thing of the past, they are alive and well in the institutions, systems, cultures, and beliefs and practices that surround us.

It is difficult to express how I felt reading Lisa Sharon Harper's "Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World - and How to Repair It All."

Harper has spent three decades exploring ten generations of her family's history through DNA research, oral histories, interviews, and genealogy. The result is, of course, more than simply this book as it would be nearly impossible to contain the power of such research within the less than 300 pages captured in print here. However, this book, "Fortune," is a remarkable effort that draws on Harper's experience as she recovers the beauty of her heritage while simultaneously exposing the brokenness that race has wrought in America. As a longtime Christian activist, it is not surprising that Harper winds down this journey by casting a vision for collective repair.

It should be noted, and should be expected for those who know Harper's work, that "Fortune" is not an entertaining read. Harper is not here to play games. She is not here to wax eloquently and to soften the edges. Harper long has been and continues to be a truth-teller and a story weaver and an exposer of difficult to accept facts brought to life because if we are to heal our nation and all of its peoples these are facts we must be willing to admit, face, and offer repentance.

I will confess that it took me a couple chapters to match rhythms with Harper, a writer who is both passionate and very matter-of-fact. There is much love within these pages, though it's a love that reaches higher and demands more and seeks the holy.

With a foreword by Otis Moss III, "Fortune" for me elicited introspection and challenge. I was struck by the beauty that Harper created as she discovered the stories of her family, both painful and wondrous, and I found myself devastated as those stories became the foundation for the stories of this nation's roots with racist structures, laws, and ideologies. It's the weaving together of this tapestry that makes "Fortune" such a remarkable work of impact and inspiration. When I say inspiration, of course, I speak not of the kind of inspiration that leads to feel-good warm and fuzzies but of strengthened accountability and a sense of call to do more than I am doing now.

"Fortune" is most definitely not a "do nothing" book. It is a book that demands that we all do something.

All the words that I can think of to describe "Fortune" feel inadequate. Harper's research into her family's history is remarkable, painful and exhilarating and remarkable and so much more. Harper's ability to weave this history into this nation's history is both intimate and universal. Yet, it is truly Harper's ability to somehow create this tapestry in the third and final part of "Fortune" that for me clinches this book's brilliance. It makes it clear that this is the work of healing our nation and our world, but also of healing our neighborhoods and families and children and adults.

I've long had a deep appreciation for Harper's work and, in some ways, I can't help but feel like much of Harper's life and Harper's work has led her to writing "Fortune" and has equipped her for this difficult task. It is more than simply the research, though certainly it is profound. It is the soul work that she had to do in order to write with such clarity, intelligence, compassion, and vision.

Both masterful in her storytelling and visionary in her social awareness, Lisa Sharon Harper has created a work of profound wonder with "Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World - and How to Repair It All."