Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Historian Ronald A. Johnson, Ph.D., of Baylor University brings to light the fascinating story of American patriots and rebels from Saint-Domingue (later Haiti) allying against European tyranny. While modern understandings of freedom are often linked to the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Johnson argues that the desire of Black Atlantic inhabitants for liberty and their will to resist slavery predated the fateful standoff between minutemen and redcoats at Lexington and Concord. Drawing from original multilingual sources to offer a fresh perspective, this lecture fuses the search for freedom by Black and white founders in the United States and Saint-Domingue into a coherent story of collective resistance during the most explosive twenty-year period of the eighteenth century. This program accompanies our current exhibition, Voices of Revolution, on view through January 10, 2027.
About the Speaker
Ronald A. Johnson, Ph.D., is an associate professor of history and holds the Ralph and Bessie Mae Lynn chair at Baylor University. His areas of specialization include the Atlantic World, race, and revolution, with a focus on early US-Haiti diplomatic relations. He is the author of numerous articles as well as two books. His first book, Diplomacy in Black and White: John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and Their Atlantic World Alliance, was published in 2014 by the University of Georgia Press. His latest book, Entangled Alliances: Racialized Freedom & Atlantic Connections during the American Revolution, was published in 2025 by Cornell University Press. He is currently completing a new book entitled We are Equal: Turmoil and Triumph in the Early United States and Revolutionary Haiti.
Additionally, he is the co-editor of In Search of Liberty: African American Internationalism in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World, published by University of Georgia Press in 2021, as well as the co-editor of the Journal of the Early Republic. Dr. Johnson is also the 2026-2027 Mellon Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the American Antiquarian Society, where he also received the 2023-2024 Kate B. and Hall J. Peterson Fellowship and was elected to membership in 2014.
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Historian Ronald A. Johnson, Ph.D., of Baylor University brings to light the fascinating story of American patriots and rebels from Saint-Domingue (later Haiti) allying against European tyranny. While modern understandings of freedom are often linked to the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Johnson argues that the desire of Black Atlantic inhabitants for liberty and their will to resist slavery predated the fateful standoff between minutemen and redcoats at Lexington and Concord. Drawing from original multilingual sources to offer a fresh perspective, this lecture fuses the search for freedom by Black and white founders in the United States and Saint-Domingue into a coherent story of collective resistance during the most explosive twenty-year period of the eighteenth century. This program accompanies our current exhibition, Voices of Revolution, on view through January 10, 2027.
About the Speaker
Ronald A. Johnson, Ph.D., is an associate professor of history and holds the Ralph and Bessie Mae Lynn chair at Baylor University. His areas of specialization include the Atlantic World, race, and revolution, with a focus on early US-Haiti diplomatic relations. He is the author of numerous articles as well as two books. His first book, Diplomacy in Black and White: John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and Their Atlantic World Alliance, was published in 2014 by the University of Georgia Press. His latest book, Entangled Alliances: Racialized Freedom & Atlantic Connections during the American Revolution, was published in 2025 by Cornell University Press. He is currently completing a new book entitled We are Equal: Turmoil and Triumph in the Early United States and Revolutionary Haiti.
Additionally, he is the co-editor of In Search of Liberty: African American Internationalism in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World, published by University of Georgia Press in 2021, as well as the co-editor of the Journal of the Early Republic. Dr. Johnson is also the 2026-2027 Mellon Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the American Antiquarian Society, where he also received the 2023-2024 Kate B. and Hall J. Peterson Fellowship and was elected to membership in 2014.
SUBSCRIBE to our channel: bit.ly/3DxZnrJ
Follow us on social media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmericanRevo...
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/americanrev...
Twitter: twitter.com/AmRevInstitute
Stay updated by joining our mailing list: bit.ly/3TpfhdL
Become an Associate of the American Revolution Institute: bit.ly/3Bonuqp
Visit our website: americanrevolutioninstitute.org
Learn more and explore future and past programs: americanrevolutioninstitute.org/events #amrevinstitute
