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Articles by Jessica Johnson
Daddy Empire
No spoilers. Probably. A friend born of 20th century African immigrants once told me, “You’re an orphan.” In other words, that as a Black American, an African American, a descendant of Africans transported to the North American continent and the Caribbean, I had no kin. Casual like that. Nothing but a weather report. Sunny today, chance of rain. You’re an orphan. I wanted to slap them. Tell that to my Mama’s face, I thought, quick as lightning.
Daddy, Again
The pace of the debate is cyclical. Every few years or so, a major American publication declares the time has come, the deed is done: Thomas Jefferson was not only an enslaver, but he also fathered children by an enslaved woman. Every few years or so, the outrage consumes clicks and texts, threads and tweets. Every few years, it is proclaimed that No LONGER, will the PUBLIC wonder. No longer will the SALACIOUS TRUTH remain hidden.
He Won! (On Lonnie Bunch, the NMAAHC, and the Right to Rest)
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Twelfth Offering: Watch the Road
Tessie Prevost, Gail Etienne, and Leona Tate at the ribbon cutting of the TEP Center in 2022 (TEP Center) On April 29, 2026, as I sat down to write this twelfth and final offering for Stitch Open My Eyes, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision on Louisiana v. Callais. I planned to write about Homer Plessy. It was in high school I first learned about Plessy v. Ferguson, the case of train segregation that made its way all the way to the Supreme Court.
marginalia no. 10
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research post 2025-12-12
Queen Latifah being fine as hell in The Equalizer Currently rewatching The Equalizer over and over because Queen is still fine as hell and watching an intergenerational family of Black women discuss fighting (physically) for others while also exchanging pancake recipes and relationship advice across a kitchen table is my obsession.
Office Hours: A Story of Sugar and Freedom
No office hours today, as you saw. Full disclosure: I had a minor surgical procedure so I am in bed recovering. All is well. Yesterday was the anniversary of Toni Cade Bambara’s transition to ancestor. I told a dear sista friend about my surgery and she sent me this. What a blessing to be loved by Black women who care and share words of wisdom by other Black women!!! So I paused to rest. But I didn’t want to leave hump day with nothing.
marginalia no. 9 +
Derecka Purnell, Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom. Astra House, 2022. Derecka Purnell, you’re so good at this. Thank you for this book. Also….I know, I know friends. Not much marginalia today. The last week has been full of time with last week of classes and events, the SkyBabies, chosen family, and, a few other projects….
research post 2025-12-05
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1961) Rounding the bend on one writing project and starting the next one. These are starting to look less like focused research and more like kitchen sink —food, grease and messy plates everywhere. Ah well. That’s just the way love goes (in Janet Jackson voice). Disfruta…. Alice Dunbar-Nelson, “I am An American.” MSS 0113, Alice Dunbar-Nelson papers, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.
marginalia no. 8
Derecka Purnell, Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom (Astra House, 2022). Derecka Purnell, Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom (Astra House, 2022). Derecka Purnell, Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom (Astra House, 2022). Stephanie MH Camp, “Black Is Beautiful: An American History,” The Journal of Southern History 81, no. 3 (2015): 675. Kitchen Table History is a reader-supported publication.
marginalia no. 7
Hilda Llorens, Making Livable Worlds: Afro-Puerto Rican Women Building Environmental Justice (University of Washington Press, 2021). Laura Harjo, Spiral to the Stars: Mvskoke Tools of Futurity (University of Arizona Press, 2019). Laura Harjo, Spiral to the Stars: Mvskoke Tools of Futurity (University of Arizona Press, 2019). Laura Harjo, Spiral to the Stars: Mvskoke Tools of Futurity(University of Arizona Press, 2019).
research post 2025-11-21
A good week to do Black digital things. Jessica Marie Johnson on Instagram: "Loved accepting the ASA DH… Still at ASA, but will be back at Office Hours (Wed, 12 noon, EST) next week!! I spent last week in writing ceremony. I cleared my desktop. I reorganized by Scriveners. I discovered a treasure trove of research notes and ideas sitting in an old copy of Google Keep. I found new ways to link my reMarkable up to the other work I am doing. And I dug deep into practice.
Office Hours Live at the Kitchen Table
Congratulations Keywords for Black Louisiana!!! Overflowing with gratitude and joy for the work, and for our team, but especially our Community Circle and Advisory Board: Malik Bartholomew (Dillard University, KnowLa Tours) Freddi Evans (Author, Arts Educator, Independent Scholar) Denise Frazier (Educator, Multimedia artist) Shana M. griffin (Founder of PUNCTUATE, creator of DISPLACED) Kathe Hambrick (Amistad Research Center) Gia M.
marginalia no. 6
Still with Jenny Sharpe, plus some sugar research with Richard Follett and a major-general’s camera and pencil Fire Inside Anthology
Congratulations Keywords for Black Louisiana (K4BL) on your ASA Digital Project Award!!!
"This project means so much and working with this team has been a dream come true.
research post 2025-11-14
Some repeats in this post. Organizing my desktop for a weekend of writing alongside syllabus planning and closing down classes, projects and labs for the holiday break. I revisited a few things, including in Office Hours this week. The repetition was soothing so I leaned into it. Farrah Jasmine Griffin said “read until you understand” and I am, I am, I am. Yes, I’m starting course prep verrrrry early.
After Work Drinks: From Archives to Word Holes with Brodber's Louisiana
EDIT: Updated captions to match audio “I have my style of data collection, collect the dog’s bark, the wind whispering, and collect nonverbal expressions.” - Ella in Louisiana by Edna Brodber Special heart emojis to and today! Loved the conversation today and the chance to unfurl on so many topics.
research post 2025-11-07 + marginalia no. 5
More on Black life x Ai, more on afrofuturism (really starting to get into the guts of the matter), more on archives, haunts, and dead things. This newsletter is threaded with plantation residue….but that is how the digital, data, and Ai are made. Jenny Sharpe called it the dust, the debris of the past in our history. But Dawoud Bey is a conjurer with his lens. There’s that too. Grateful for time with my prima in Orlando and a beautiful event hosted by PROPA on SUGAR.
After Work Drinks: Windows and Portals and Word Holes
Later than even I expected to office hours today, but the trade off was a great conversation with an amazing mentee. The trade off for y’all is the video today is available in full below.
research post 2025 April 19
Waiting for edits back on one project. Plotting out new work. Keeping my head above water. A cascade from the research tabs below. Shout out to everyone who organized a day (really a week) of actions on behalf of education, students, faculty, and creating new worlds. We needed to see each other and know that we are in this fight and that we can win.
Writing for People Who Hate Writing
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landofwomen no. 33: the vows I said
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on listening
I have not been doing my time listening to ghosts. When I don’t spend time listening to ghosts, they intercede on their own, and my own, behalf. They wake me up at four am, wondering why I’m not writing their book. They make shadows move and creep along the corners of my vision, living in my peripherals—in my side eye. They probe between my toes, tripping up my steps and start their own choirs of harmonious and discordant notes just beneath the realm of hearing.
scrapbook post 2023 August 17
No rhyme or reason, just ephemera…. “We might put it this way: It was as though 2010 were furious with 2008 and wrought its revenge in an election result that all but canceled out the previous outcome. It seems that the Facebook crowd—the young and the restless—stayed home that day, and it is precisely that generational cohort toward which Susan Saulny’s New York Times piece, “Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above,” is aimed and from which it draws its inspiration.
scrapbook post for 2023 July 07
I’m on Twitter hiatus for the summer and more and more of what I’d post there I’m beginning to post here. But I hear that Twitter is worse than ever before, so what was a break until June, I extended to August and I who knows if I ever drag my boredom back there. Makes me sad, honestly. In the meantime… Holly Baker and Julian Chambliss interview the late, great Dr. Cheryl Wall (click image to hear): Cheryl Wall passed away in 2020.
VIDEO: 2023 Stephanie M. H. Camp Memorial Lecture
This past week I delivered the 2023 Stephanie M.H. Camp Memorial Lecture at the University of Washington. A full circle moment for me and an opportunity to honor a scholar whose thinking still beguiles and confounds me in the best ways. I can read Closer to Freedom over and over and still need more. I hope you know how much we esteem you Professor Camp. And we will continue to do this work in your name.
research notes 2023 April 13
Semester is closing hard, fast, and with no space to breathe so these are just bullet points this week, no summaries. And this doesn’t even remotely clean my desktop of PDFs, but I at least cleared some windows. Pedro Lebrón Ortiz, Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez, and Amanda Pavley, “Notes on Black Thought in Puerto Rico: A Brief Commentary,” Diálogos, February 26, 2023, 9–28. Sylvia Wynter, “The Ceremony Must Be Found: After Humanism,” Boundary 2, 1984, 19–70.
Tunes: 2023 March 20
Miss me with that bullshit. All that I’ve been dreaming of
Haiti’s New Political Worlds
Haiti is, arguably, the birthplace of the modern world. One can no longer speak of issues around slavery and freedom, anticolonial struggle, revolutionary activity, and racial justice without mentioning—or, more decisively, centering—the Haitian Revolution, which began in 1791 and birthed the independent Haitian state in 1804. Prior to the Revolution, Haiti was the first Caribbean island to be encroached upon by 15th-century Spanish conquistadors.
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