Rev. Andre E. Johnson, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Memphis. He teaches classes in African American Public Address, Rhetoric Race and Religion, Media Studies, Interracial Communication, Rhetoric, and Popular Culture, and Hip Hop Studies. He is currently collecting and editing the works of AME Church Bishop Henry McNeal Turner under the title The Literary Archive of Henry McNeal Turner (Edwin Mellen Press). He has already published the first six volumes, and the seventh one is set for publication in 2020. Additionally, along with his academic titles, he currently serves as Senior Pastor of Gifts of Life Ministries an inner-city church built upon the servant leadership philosophy.
Dr. Johnson was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee and after graduation, he attended the University of Tennessee at Martin where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in Communication. He graduated from Memphis Theological Seminary where he took the Masters of Divinity degree and completed the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Communication at the University of Memphis.
In addition to collecting the writings of Bishop Turner, Dr. Johnson is also the author of The Forgotten Prophet: Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and the African American Prophetic Tradition (2012) that won the National Communication Association (NCA) 2013 African American Communication and Culture Division Outstanding Book Award. He is the editor of Urban God Talk: Constructing a Hip Hop Spirituality (2013). He is the co-author (along with Amanda Nell Edgar) of the book The Struggle Over Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter (2018). He serves as the curator and director of the Henry McNeal Turner Project (#HMTProject), a digital archive dedicated to the writings and study of Bishop Turner.
Dr. Johnson has presented academic papers at national, regional, and state conferences winning awards at each level, has published essays in the Howard Journal of Communications, Southern Communication Journal, Black Theology Journal, The New York Times, Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric and The Journal of African American History. He holds membership in several national, regional and state associations in the areas of Communication, History, African American Studies, and Religious Studies.
In addition to what many consider groundbreaking work on Bishop Turner, Dr. Johnson maintains an eclectic research agenda. Ongoing research projects explore the nexus between rhetoric, theology and the Bible, religion and politics, the rhetoric of Barack Obama, religion and media, the prophetic rhetoric of W.E.B. Du Bois, and the rhetoric of Donald Trump. He is currently working on a manuscript tentatively titled, #WhiteChurchQuiet: The Role of Race and the White Church in America.
