He Called Me Sister

The fascinating story of a friendship with an inmate on death row.

It was a clash of race, privilege, and circumstance when Alan Robertson first signed up to visit Cecil Johnson on Death Row and offer spiritual guidance. The minister’s wife Suzanne had no intention of being involved until a fateful chance phone call. That Cecil and she eventually became such close friends–a white middle-class woman and a Black man who grew up devoid of advantage–is a testament to perseverance, forgiveness, and love, but also to the notion that differences don’t have to be barriers.

This book recounts a fifteen-year friendship and how trust and compassion was forged despite the difficult circumstances. The story details how Cecil maintained inexplicable joy and hope despite the tragic events of his life and how Suzanne opened her heart and her family to a man convicted of murder. Cecil Johnson was executed Dec. 2, 2009.