David K. Johnson

David K. Johnson is an award-winning historian and author. His first book, The Lavender Scare was made into a documentary film that garnered best documentary awards at over a dozen film festivals and broadcast nationwide on PBS June 18, 2019. His second book, Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement chronicles the rise of a gay commercial network in the years leading up to the Stonewall Riots. It was released in March 2019 by Columbia University Press in its series on “The History of U.S. Capitalism.” It was featured in a starred review in Publishers Weekly.

A nationally recognized authority on LGBT history, David has contributed to government reports and amicus briefs which document a history of discrimination and thereby seek to expand civil rights protections and create a more inclusive educational curriculum. He contributed to the National Park Foundation’s LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer History.

He earned a B.A. from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University, both in history. He has enjoyed fellowships from the National Humanities Center, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Social Science Research Council. As Professor in the History Department at the University of South Florida, he teaches courses on the post-1945 U.S. and the history of gender and sexuality.