Chinese in Jamaica topic of Inaugural Lecture

Howard Johnson, Alumni Distinguished Professor of History and Black American Studies

1:50 p.m., Nov. 1, 2004--Howard Johnson will deliver his Inaugural Lecture as Alumni Distinguished Professor of History and Black American Studies, at 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 10, in 104 Gore Hall. The lecture, entitled “The Alien Question: Chinese Traders in Early 20th-Century Jamaica,” is sponsored by Interim Dean Bobby Gempesaw and the College of Arts and Sciences and is open to the public.

Johnson’s research has focused on Caribbean and Jamaican history, and he is the acting director of the Black American Studies Program at UD. In 2003, he was invited to deliver the prestigious Elsa V. Goveia Memorial Lecture at the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica, where he spoke on “The Politics of the Past: National Heroes in Post-Colonial Jamaica,” which has been published under the same name.

Johnson has published extensively in his field including “The Black Experience in the British Caribbean in the 20th Century,” a chapter in The Black Experience of the British Empire, part of the Oxford History of the British Empire and entries on Sir Eric Gairy and Dr. Cheddi Jagan in the New Dictionary of National Biography. He also is the author of The White Minority in the Caribbean; The Bahamas from Slavery to Servitude, 1783-1933; The Bahamas in Slavery and Freedom; and After the Crossing: Immigrants and Minorities in Caribbean Creole Society.

Johnson is affiliated with the Association of Caribbean Historians, the American Historical Association and also the Society for Caribbean Studies and the Economic History Society, both based in the United Kingdom.

A graduate of the University of the West Indies with a doctorate from the University of Oxford, Johnson joined the UD faculty in 1990 after teaching at the University of the West Indies, the University of Toronto and the College of the Bahamas.

Article by Sue Moncure
Photo by Kathy Atkinson

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