Guy Benton Johnson (1901-1991) was a sociologist, social anthropologist, and archaeologist. He was a distinguished student of black culture in the rural South and a pioneer advocate of racial equality.

Guy B. Johnson was born in Caddo Mills, Texas, where he grew up on a farm. He took degrees in sociology from Baylor University (A.B., 1921), the University of Chicago (M.A., 1922), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Ph.D., 1927). In 1936-1937 he did postdoctoral study in anthropology at Chicago and Yale.

After teaching a year each at Ohio Wesleyan University and Baylor College for Women (now Mary-Hardin Baylor), Johnson was recruited to North Carolina as a research assistant in Howard W. Odum's new Institute for Research in Social Science in 1924, which he never left for long. He taught at Chapel Hill from 1927 until he retired as Kenan Professor of Sociology and Anthropology in 1969. He...