The Portal to Texas History 2026 Research Fellowship Awardee
Theo Johnson
Project Title
The People of Quakertown
Project Description
The People of Quakertown is a photographic and archival research project exploring Black displacement and cultural resilience in Denton, Texas. Centered on the 1922 removal of Quakertown, a Freedmen’s Town, the work examines how histories of erasure and survival persist in the present-day landscape. Through contemporary photography and research within the Portal to Texas History, including oral histories from former residents and their descendants, the project maps connections between past and present, positioning the city itself as a living archive shaped by memory, absence, and transformation.
Biography
Theo Johnson (b. 2003, Houston, TX) is a photographer and writer whose work examines Black memory, displacement, and community resilience in Texas through documentary practice and archival research. His work centers suppressed histories, with a particular interest in how narratives of place are constructed, obscured, and reimagined over time. Through photography, he explores the relationship between landscape, memory, and collective identity, positioning the archive as both a site of preservation and intervention. Johnson received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Texas in 2026.
