E. Patrick Johnson

A native of Hickory, NC, E. Patrick Johnson received his BA and MA degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his PhD from Louisiana State University. Currently, he is Professor and Chair in the Department of Performance Studies and Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University.

A scholar/artist, Johnson has performed nationally and internationally and has published widely in the area of race, gender, sexuality and performance. His book Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity won several awards, including the Lilla A. Heston Award, the Errol Hill Book Award, and was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. He co-authored (with Mae G. Henderson) Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology.

His most recent book is Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South—An Oral History, which is now a one-person play that premiered here in Chicago in May 2010. He is a fellow at the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts at Columbia College. Johnson has dedicated his career to highlighting and preserving the black LGBT community through his scholarship and his art. He would like to thank the PrideIndex.com for honoring him with the Outstanding Service award.