Johnson Lecturer Daniel Sharfstein (center) stands with School of Public and International Affairs Dean Matthew Auer and School of Law Dean Usha R. Rodrigues.

Legal historian Daniel J. Sharfstein presented the Judge Horace J. Johnson, Jr. Lecture during the fall 2025 semester.

The holder of the Lansden Chair in Law, professor of history and director of the George Barrett Social Justice Program at Vanderbilt University, Sharfstein frequently combines his academic backgrounds in history and law to pursue seemingly niche topics in both. He previously received a Guggenheim Fellowship to complete research that led to the creation of his book Thunder in the Mountains: Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard and the Nez Perce War, a look at post-Reconstruction America.

He was also awarded the Law & Society Association’s 2012 James Willard Hurst Jr. Prize for socio-legal history, among other awards, for his first book, The Invisible Line: A Secret History of Race in America.

With support from UGA, the School of Law and the School of Public and International Affairs established the Judge Horace J. Johnson, Jr. Lecture in memory of the late jurist, who was a trailblazer in Georgia and a 1982 School of Law alumnus.