Karen J. Johnson
Thinking historically about the past, thinking wisely in the present.
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Karen's Recent and Forthcoming Releases
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Karen J. Johnson's books explore the past to provide insights and inspiration for a better future.
Her books include: One in Christ: Chicago Catholics and the Quest for Interracial Justice (Oxford, 2018), Understanding and Teaching Religion in US History (co-edited with Jonathan Yeager, U Wisconsin Press, 2024), and Ordinary Heroes of Racial Justice: A History of Christians in Action (InterVarsity Press Academic, 2025)
Reviews of One in Christ
Michael O. Emerson
“"A tour de force. One in Christ takes us into the streets and parishes of Catholic Chicago, richly exploring the much understudied work of the laity-particularly women-in shaping, defining, and acting for interracial unity and justice. In a delightfully engaging text, Johnson draws us into the messiness of human interaction for change and resistance during the long civil rights movement of the 1930s to the 1960s. Her findings and interpretations have deep meaning for our current times. A must read for anyone wanting to understand civil rights and racial change.”
- Michael O. Emerson, author of Divided by Faith, United by Faith, and Transcending Racial Barriers
Benjamin Ivry
“With warmheartedness and clarity, Karen J. Johnson explores conundrums about race and morality in the
United States in One in Christ:
Chicago Catholics and the Quest for
Interracial Justice.”
- Benjamin Ivry, American Magazine
Omar M. McRoberts
Karen J. Johnson has made a remarkable contribution to scholarship on interracial civil rights activism in the Northern United States. One in Christ is balanced in its attention to clergy and laity, and innovative in its intersectional placement of religion, race, gender, sexuality, class, and place at the heart of its analysis. Rigorous and passionate in its research and presentation, One in Christ will be appreciated as a cornerstone achievement in the history of the Catholic interracial justice movement.
- Omar M. McRoberts, author of Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighborhood
