Surviving Deep Waters: A Legendary Reporter's Story of Overcoming Poverty, Race, Violence, and His Mother's Deepest Secret

When you have nothing to lose, you can risk everything.

There was no reason to bet on Bruce Johnson, given where he started out. Poor, Black, and raised by a single mother who had a secret. He was the child she hid in plain view from the rest of her family.

Bruce would spend his youth at Chickasaw Park in Louisville—Kentucky’s segregated west end. He would grab the low hanging tree branches, then swing out over the Ohio River before dropping into the dangerous water below. He didn’t know how...