Kenya R. Johnson, PhD, MSW
Liberation Change Strategist | Independent Scholar | Author
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Dr. Johnson is currently an Assistant Professor of Social Work at the University of Houston–Downtown in HTX. She teaches a range of BSW courses, including an elective course she designed called Engaging with Cultural Humility. She also coordinates the NextGEN Legacy Program that onboards new BSW students by helping them build community and develop leadership skills that prepare them for their practicums and professional journeys beyond the program. Dr. Johnson's teaching centers on critical self-reflection and skill-building in social work practice, emphasizing wellness, connection, power, and humility. She is passionate about mentoring students, guiding them toward becoming thoughtful, culturally responsive practitioners equipped to serve communities with integrity throughout their professional journeys. Dr. Johnson's research explores organizational and leadership development through a liberation-centered lens, with a focus on how work happens in movement building & coalition spaces. Her work also examines organizational wellness and change, alongside how power operates in our work and how cultural humility can shift and create new spaces of power.
About her journey...
Dr. Johnson grew up in the Pine Lawn community in St. Louis county and graduated from Normandy High School. The juxtaposition of witnessing multiple forms of oppression while also being connected to the rich history of civil rights and black activism in St. Louis underscores her strong commitment to advancing racial justice. Dr. Johnson’s educational background includes receiving her Bachelor’s in social work from University of Central Missouri, her Master's in Social Work from Saint Louis University, and Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work at the University of Houston's Graduate College of Social Work.
After relocating to Las Vegas, Nevada, Dr. Johnson was trained as an anti- racism facilitator through the Western States Center in Portland, Oregon and Race Forward in Chicago, Illinois. Her 20+ years of experience in being an anti-racist trainer contributes to her current scholarship and activism work. She also has an extensive background as a mental health practitioner working in community and school-based settings. Her journey includes policy advocacy, political engagement and community organizing work having facilitated grassroots mobilization efforts that increased voter engagement, especially in communities of color. Dr. Johnson received numerous awards for her community activism work in Nevada.
Dr. Johnson currently lives in Houston, Texas. In 2017 she and Dr. Kim Baker co-founded Full Circle Strategies LLC. Full Circle is a consulting firm specializing in helping organizations engage in race equity work. It provides support through its Holistically Engaging in Anti-Racist Transformation Academy© also known as HEARTspeak. HEARTspeak is an evidence-based behavioral change intervention. As a lead HEARTspeak strategist, Dr. Johnson engages with a diverse group of organizational leaders and their staff representing various professional sectors across the country. She co-facilitates trauma-informed skill-building training, provides coaching and leads a team of skilled facilitators who support individuals committed to practicing race equity work at the individual and organizational levels. The HEARTspeak Academy centers anti-racism, holistic wellness, liberation, solidarity, and love as core values that drive change.
It was a culmination of Dr. Johnson's twenty-five years of professional experiences that led to the start of the Race Equity Leadership and Research Collective in 2020. This Houston based nonprofit founded by her and her sister, is also known as the RE Collective. The RE Collective is dedicated to the advancement and leadership cultivation of Black, Indigenous, Latino/a, and other people of color through leadership, research, and advocacy. The RE Collective's signature program is called The Ukombozi Fellowship, which is a year long leadership development training for BIPOC and White community, organizational, and system leaders.
Liberated Learning Hub
To learn more about the RE Collective's community-centered institute,