We Are All the Same: A Story of a Boy’s Courage And a Mother’s Love

The global battle against the ravages and spread of AIDS is set against the life and death of Nkosi Johnson, a young South African boy who, despite having been born with the ailment, became a dramatic symbol of the struggle against the disease and the strength of the human spirit in the face of tragedy. Reprint.

Award-winning correspondent for ABC World News and Nightline Jim Wootenis a seasoned newsman who has covered tragedy the world over. Now he tells the story of Nkosi Johnson, an eleven-year-old South African boy born with AIDS into poverty in a shantytown and given only a few years to live. But his ailing mother managed to cross her country's divisions of race and class to bring him to Gail Johnson, who would raise him for her. Before his own death at the age of twelve, Nkosi had become, in Nelson Mandela's words, "an icon of the struggle for life" for millions in Africa and around the world. And he had changed Wooten's life in ways Wooten is still discovering. We Are All the Same is a work of Biblical simplicity and power that reveals the astonishing resilience of the human spirit.

Author Biography: Jim Wooten is the senior correspondent for ABC News's Nightline and a former bureau chief and White House correspondent for The New York Times. He is the recipient of a John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism.