Great Depression and New Deal Reference Library: Primary Sources

In the fall of 1997, Michael Johnston went to the rural Mississippi Delta — the "deep heart's core" of the South — as a member of the Teach for America program, to become an English teacher in one of the poorest districts in the nation. At Greenville High School, he confronted a racially divided world in which his African-American students had to struggle daily against a legacy of crippling poverty and the scourges of drug addiction and gang violence that ravaged their community. In the Deep Heart's Core tells the story of how Johnston reached out to inspire his teenage students with all the means at his disposal — from the language of the great poets to the strategies of chess to the vigor of athletics. Vibrantly alive with the rich atmosphere of the Mississippi Delta — the haunting beauty of its hollows and the aching tragedy of its history — In the Deep Heart's Core is a compassionate, eloquent, and profoundly moving book. It is an inspiring and unforgettable story of one young man's experience in the Teach for America program, and of how a new generation of teachers is reaching out to give hope to the students society has forgotten.

Michael Johnston, a Colorado native, moved to Mississippi after graduating from Yale in 1997. He subsequently earned a master’s degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and cofounded New Leaders for New Schools, an educational nonprofit that recruits and trains principals for urban schools. He is currently enrolled at Yale Law School and is preparing for a career devoted to educational reform.