To Defy the Monster

About the Book

July 8, 1932, 11 PM. East Austin, an African-American district in Jim Crow Texas. Sixty-year-old Charles Johnson is driving home from Bible study when a car full of young white men swerves in front of him. A brief altercation ensues. Convinced that his life is threatened, Johnson fires his pistol and drives away. Johnson's shot kills the unarmed, eighteen-year-old son of Albert Allison, a prominent cotton landlord, influential in politics and an advocate for racial justice. To Defy the Monster shows how the confluence of unique cultural and historical events determines Johnson fate and why Allison orders his family never to speak of the matter.

"A family's compelling racial truth has been unearthed for future generations with Al Allison eloquently redefining justice and healing"-Joyce F. King, author of Hate Crime-The story of a Dragging in Jasper, Texas

About the Author

Al Allison is a fifth-generation Texan with degrees from Harvard and the University of Texas. After Naval service in Viet Nam, he worked in business and politics in the United States and Europe, where he lived for twenty years before returning to his Texas roots.