author

Guy Benton Johnson

1901–1991

A pioneering sociologist and anthropologist, he studied Black life in the rural South and spoke out for racial equality at a time when that stance took real courage. His work helped bring careful scholarship and plain moral clarity to questions of race, culture, and social change in the American South.

1 Audiobook

Negro workaday songs

Negro workaday songs

by Howard Washington Odum, Guy Benton Johnson

About the author

Born on February 28, 1901, and dying on March 23, 1991, Guy Benton Johnson was an American sociologist and social anthropologist. Sources describe him as an important scholar of Black culture in the rural South and as an early advocate of racial equality.

Johnson is especially remembered for research that treated Southern Black communities as serious subjects of study rather than stereotypes. That combination of fieldwork, social analysis, and public conscience helped make him a notable figure in twentieth-century Southern sociology.

Because the readily available sources I found were brief, I have kept this overview focused on the points that could be confirmed with confidence.