Vi Johnson Receives NGLTF Leather Leadership Award
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force announced today that Viola Johnson will receive its 2012 Leather Leadership Award, to be presented at the Task Force’s 24th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change. More than 2,500 leaders and activists are expected to attend the conference, which will be held in Baltimore, Md., Jan. 25–29, 2012.
The award will recognize Johnson’s nearly four decades of leadership and activism within and on behalf of the leather community. She is the seventh person and first woman to receive the prestigious award, which is accompanied by a $5,000 honorarium. Previous recipients include leather luminaries Guy Baldwin, Tony DeBlase, Hardy Haberman, Chuck Renslow, Dave Rhodes and Graylin Thornton.
“We are proud to recognize Vi Johnson’s extraordinary record of selfless service to our community,” says Sue Hyde, director of the Task Force’s Creating Change conference. “Her warmth, humility and quiet perseverance have endeared her to several generations of leathermen and women and this award is a way for the larger LGBT community to embrace her as well.”
“I never intended to become an activist,” says Johnson. “I simply acted on those issues which I was passionate about, and on my need to make life better for the next generation as it was made better for me. I am so humbled and honored that the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has noticed my work.”
More about Vi Johnson
Viola Johnson has been an activist, educator, writer, motivational speaker and author in and for the leather community for nearly four decades. She has served as a mentor to countless individuals, and was dubbed “Mom” by several generations of leathermen and women. She is delighted to now be “Grandmom” to a whole new generation.
She is passionately involved with preserving the history of the SM/leather/fetish communities, serving as the director and senior griot of the Carter/Johnson Library and Collection, a traveling library designed to bring history to the communities it serves. Previously, she sat on the board of directors of the Leather Archives & Museum. Johnson is a member of Tulsa Uniform Leather Seekers Association (T.U.L.S.A.), the Lesbian Sex Mafia (LSM), and the ONYX Pearls, as well as honorary member of many other organizations.
She has lectured at numerous academic institutions, including Bryn Mawr and Barnard Colleges, and Oklahoma State University. She continues to speak on panels at a wide variety of events and organizations.
In addition, Johnson has received numerous honors for her work, including Lifetime Achievement Awards from Pantheon of Leather, the National Leather Association, and Black Beat. She is the author of two books, Dhampir: Child of the Blood and To Love, To Obey, To Serve: Diary of an Old Guard Slave. She is the wife of Jill Carter, International Ms. Leather 1996.
