A scholar who works in public
Dr. Eugene B. Lee-Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Nelson Mandela College of Government and Social Sciences at Southern University and A&M College — his alma mater and the flagship of the Southern University System, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
His research examines how Black communities in the American South build, contest, and hold power, with particular attention to Southern hip-hop's “Third Coast,” the political leadership of Black women, and the movements that carry both. He earned his Ph.D. at LSU with a dissertation on Black women's quest for communal change, and his work now runs from a book on the rise of Southern rap to peer-reviewed studies of campaigns, pedagogy, and Black political thought. He is equally a practitioner — legislative liaison to Louisiana State Senator Regina Barrow for more than a decade, chair of the Baton Rouge North Economic Development District, a recent voter-rights witness before the state Senate, and host of a public-facing podcast. For him, scholarship and public life are one continuous practice.
