Columbus resident Deborah Johnson has won the University of Alabama School of Law’s Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction for her novel, “The Secret of Magic.”
The award puts Johnson alongside previous winners John Grisham and Michael Connelly, and compares her book to Harper Lee’s classic novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
“I just love Michael Connelly and John Grisham,” Johnson. “Plus Harper Lee and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.'”
The Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction began five years ago in honor of the 50th anniversary of the publication of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” as well as Lee, who was an alumna of the University of Alabama School of Law. The prize is given to the author of a book-length work of fiction which portrays lawyers’ role in society and the power they have to effect change. The prize is authorized by Lee.
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Johnson’s novel, “The Secret of Magic,” tells the story of a young African American lawyer named Regina Robichard, a character Johnson loosely based on Constance Baker Motley, the first woman attorney hired by Thurgood Marshall to work for the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund. In Johnson’s book, which takes place in 1946, Regina travels to the fictionalized town of Revere, Mississippi, to investigate the disappearance and murder of an African American World War II veteran.
The “Secret of Magic,” released in 2014, was one of 16 entries for the Harper Lee Prize, but Johnson didn’t even know her publisher had entered it until she learned it was one of the top three finalists.
“It was totally a surprise,” she said.
Still, she was happy to be included. As a fan of previous winners of the award, she said that those books definitely carried on the spirit of “To Kill a Mockingbird” by making people more aware of social justice issues.
“I’m quite proud that they would think that this book continued that heritage,” she said.
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Johnson learned she had won the prize Thursday. Her first thoughts, she said, were, “Oh my God. I’ve got to call my sisters” and “What am I going to wear?”
The Harper Lee Prize is not just about social justice issues. It specifically goes to books about lawyers. The Secret of Magic is not only about a female lawyer in a time when that was still unusual, but it portrays the work of Thurgood Marshall and the Legal Defense and Education Fund during the years leading up to the Civil Rights movement. Johnson added that Marshall and the other lawyers who worked with him inspired a “whole generation of lawyers.”
During Johnson’s book tour, she talked to lawyers both black and white who told her Thurgood Marshall was the influence that made them want to go into law.
“It happened over and over again…almost every stop (there) was a lawyer who admired him,” Johnson said.
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It’s easy for us now to look back and see the successes achieved by the lawyers working in the Legal Defense and Education Fund, such as Brown vs. The Board of Education, Johnson said. But none of the lawyers had any way of knowing how successful they would be. Plus, the work they did was very dangerous, particularly in the South, Johnson added.
“They were very courageous,” she said.
The story of the Legal Defense and Education Fund is also a slightly personal one for Johnson, whose grandfather, an African American World War II veteran himself, was a great admirer of Marshall.
“I think (my grandfather would) like (the book),” Johnson said. “Because of the fact that it would be important to him that we not forget the work Thurgood Marshall did.”
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Other people Johnson met on book tours said their parents and grandparents felt the same way about Marshall as Johnson’s grandfather did. At one of her earliest signings, Johnson met a lawyer from the Mississippi Delta area who said that growing up she thought Marshall was a relative who just never came home because of the way her own grandfather talked about him.
“I love that story,” Johnson said. “And I’ve gotten other stories like that.”
The award ceremony for Johnson’s and “The Secret of Magic” will be Sept. 3 at the Library of Congress in conjunction with the National Book Fair, according to a press release from the Alabama School of Law.
Johnson is the first woman and first African American to win the Harper Lee Prize.
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