The vision of the James Weldon Johnson Institute is an open but applied mind committed to the creation of new forms of knowledge, public dialogue and social advocacy serving all of humankind.
Established in 2007 to honor the memory and achievements of James Weldon Johnson, the mission of the James Weldon Johnson Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies is to foster new scholarship, teaching, and public dialogue that focuses upon the origins, evolution, and legacy of the modern civil rights movement from 1905 to the present. The Johnson Institute is also committed to the investigation of the impact of the modern civil rights movement upon other social movements in the United States and abroad. These social movements include but are not limited to the Women’s Movement, the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgendered Movement, and the Human Rights Movement. The Johnson Institute realizes its mission through the Visiting Scholars Program, the core program of the institute. As a site for advanced interdisciplinary studies, the Johnson Institute is committed to the creation of a community of scholars dedicated to the investigation of questions central to the modern civil rights movement in a manner that transcends the boundaries of traditional disciplines within a national and global context.
"The importance of the James Weldon Johnson Institute for inter-disciplinary studies assumes a critical urgency in the context of increased global cultural suspicions, intolerance, bigotry and their accompanying violence and mind-closure. Civil rights have taken on an expanded and urgent meaning, and studies that implicate this retrograde phenomenon become a responsibility for institutions that are truly committed to objective enquiry, and the quest for intellectual strategies for combating such illiberal tendencies. The Institute would be a welcome addition to the entire study of human socialization, undertaken across the traditional humanistic disciplines."
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Wole Soyinka,
Professor Emeritus at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria Nobel Laureate in Literature,The Robert F. Woodruff Professor of the Arts Emeritus at Emory University
Founded on the premise that there is a relationship between scholarship and activism, the Johnson Institute also is committed to social advocacy by providing individuals and organizations with the tools and skills to undertake and implement their own social advocacy projects. The dynamic interplay between leadership in the tradition of James Weldon Johnson, scholarship and social advocacy positions the Johnson Institute to make distinctive contributions that will both deepen and broaden our understanding of the modern civil rights movement.
The vision of the James Weldon Johnson Institute is an open but applied mind committed to the creation of new forms of knowledge, public dialogue and social advocacy serving all of humankind.
