Dr. Willard R. Johnson is MIT Emeritus Professor of Political Science. During thirty-two years (1964-1996) of teaching, research and publishing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he specialized in topics relating to African studies, comparative and international politics, and promotion of development in American inner-city areas. In 1991, he founded the Kansas Institute of African American and Native American Family History (KIAANAFH) as a non-profit membership organization to document and commemorate the experiences of pioneer African American families of the Mid-West, especially as regards the historic ties between African- and Native-Americans.