Mission, History and Governance

The James Weldon Johnson Institute was established at Emory University in 2007. Named for James Weldon Johnson, author, composer, educator, lawyer, diplomat, and pioneering leader in the modern civil rights movement, the Johnson Institute is the first institute at Emory University established to honor the achievements of an American of African descent.

Upon its founding, the mission of the Johnson Institute was to foster new scholarship, teaching, and public dialogue addressing the origins, evolution, and legacy of the modern civil rights movement from 1905 to the present. Today, the thematic focus of the Johnson Institute has enlarged to support scholarship and public engagement that examine race and intersecting dimensions of human difference including but not limited to class, gender, religion, and sexuality. We are interested in how systems of social distinction shape identities, modes of knowing, processes of inclusion and exclusion, and acts of representation. We also seek to foster a public dialogue on all aspects of African American life and culture within the expanding framework of the African diaspora. The richness and complexity of Johnson’s own life calls us to this vital and urgent work.

The Johnson Institute actualizes its mission through the Visiting Fellows Program, the Race and Difference Colloquium Series, and Special Public Programs. Through its sponsored research and public programming, the Johnson Institute is one site within Emory University where members of the Emory community and Atlanta at-large are challenged to reflect upon and examine the shifting, complex meaning of rights, race, and difference in history, culture and civil society in both a national and global context.

In the tradition of call and response, a distinctive element in Black music and culture, the Johnson Institute cannot be what it aspires to be unless you participate. We wish to be in dialogue with you, and invite you to join our expanding circle of scholarship and social advocacy.