V. M. Johnson
V. M. Johnson, also known as Viola Johnson and Mama Vi,[1] born in 1950, is a leatherwoman, leather activist and author.[2][3][4][5]
Life
Johnson claims that when she was seventeen years old, a vampire gave her some of his own blood to drink and thus she became a vampire.[4]
In the early 1970s, she joined the BDSM and leather scenes.[2] In 1988, she became an honorary member of Tulsa Uniform Leather Seekers Association (T.U.L.S.A).[6] In 2005, she started The Carter/Johnson Library & Collection, a "collection of thousands of books, magazines, posters, art, club and event pins, newspapers, event programs and ephemera showing leather, fetish, S/M erotic history".[7]
She was a judge for many leather-related contests, including Ms. World Leather.[2][8]
She is on the board of governors for the Leather Hall of Fame.[9][10]
She was on the board of directors of the Leather Archives & Museum and is a member of the Lesbian Sex Mafia. She is married to Jill Carter.[5]
Notable awards
- 1995: National Leather Association's Jan Lyon Award for Regional or Local Work[11]
- 1995: National Leather Association Lifetime Achievement Award[12]
- 1995: Pantheon of Leather Lifetime Achievement Award[13] (Johnson was the first person to receive the National Leather Association Lifetime Achievement Award and the Pantheon of Leather Lifetime Achievement Award in the same year.)[14]
- 1998: Pantheon of Leather Couple of the Year award (shared with Jill Carter and Queen Cougar)[15]
- 2000: Pantheon of Leather Woman of the Year[16]
- 2005: SouthEast LeatherFest Jack Stice Memorial Community Service Award[17]
- 2005: Master/slave Conference slave Heart Award[18]
- 2005: Pantheon of Leather Forebear Award (tied for the win with David S. Kloss)[15]
- 2007: Black Beat Lifetime Achievement Award (This was the first Lifetime Achievement Award given by Black Beat.)[14]
- 2012: Master/slave Conference Guy Baldwin Master/slave Heritage Award[18]
- 2012: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Leather Leadership Award[19] (Johnson was the first woman to be given this award.)[5]
- 2018: The Carter/Johnson Library & Collection received the Nonprofit Organization of the Year award as part of the Pantheon of Leather Awards.[15]
- Unknown date: Induction into the Society of Janus Hall of Fame[20]
- 2021: Leather Archives & Museum’s Chuck Renslow & Tony DeBlase Founders’ Award[21]
Works
Books
- V. M. Johnson, Dhampir: Child of the Blood. Mystic Rose Books, 1995. ISBN 978-0-9645960-1-6
- Laura Antoniou (ed.),Some Women. Masquerade Books, Inc, 1995 (contributed "Journal entries")[22]
- V. M. Johnson, To Love, to Obey, to Serve: Diary of an Old Guard Slave Mystic Rose Books, 1999. ISBN 978-0-9645960-2-3
Contributing author, notable periodicals
- Black Leather in Color[23]
- Black Mistress Review
References
- ↑ "Never Again Landfill". BBC. Retrieved 26 August 2026.
Historian and leather and kink activist Vi Johnson likes to be called Mama Vi.
- 1 2 3 "Oral History Exhibit". Leather Archives & Museum. Archived from the original on 26 June 2020. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
- Aspasia Stephanou (17 July 2014). Reading Vampire Gothic Through Blood: Bloodlines. Springer. pp. 194–. ISBN 978-1-137-34923-1 – via Google Books. - ↑ V. M. Johnson (1995). Dhampir: Child of the Blood. Mystic Rose Books. ISBN 978-0-9645960-1-6.
- 1 2 Jay Stevenson PhD (21 January 2009). The Complete Idi Guide to Vampires: Fascinating Vampire Lore from Eastern Europe, Greece, Italy, and the Middle East. DK Publishing. pp. 168–. ISBN 978-1-101-02001-2.
- 1 2 3 "Vi Johnson Receives NGLTF Leather Leadership Award". Leatherati. 14 December 2011. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
- ↑ "Membership". T.U.L.S.A.
- ↑ "Carter/Johnson Leather Library". Leather Library. Retrieved 18 May 2014.
- ↑ Andy Campbell (2020). Bound together: Leather, sex, archives, and contemporary art. Manchester University Press. pp. 238–. ISBN 978-1-5261-4283-2 – via Google Books.
- ↑ "Board Of Governors". Leather Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on December 7, 2016.
- ↑ "Selection Committee". Leather Hall of Fame. Retrieved 3 July 2026.
- ↑ "List of winners". NLA International. 14 March 2019. Archived from the original on 3 January 2020. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
- ↑ "All NLA-I Awards". NLA International. 5 November 2019. Archived from the original on 6 February 2012. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
- ↑ Ariane Cruz (2016). The Color of Kink: Black Women, BDSM, and Pornography. NYU Press. pp. 236–. ISBN 978-1-4798-6532-1 – via Google Books.
- 1 2 "Mama Vi Johnson, Carter Johnson Leather Library". Master/slave Conference. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
- 1 2 3 "Pantheon of Leather Awards All Time Recipients". The Leather Journal. Archived from the original on 2020-12-28. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
- ↑ "2000". The Leather Journal. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
- ↑ "Jack Stice Memorial Community Service Award". SouthEast LeatherFest. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
- 1 2 "Master/slave Conference Awards". Master/slave Conference. Retrieved 22 April 2020 – via Archive.is.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link) - ↑ "Viola Johnson Accepts NGLTF Leather Leadership Award". The Leather Journal. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
- ↑ "Society of Janus". Erobay. 29 July 2019. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
- ↑ "30 30 Anniversary Campaign – Leather Archives & Museum".
- ↑ Laura Antoniou, ed. (1995). Some Women. Masquerade Books, Inc. OCLC 34697142.
- ↑ "BLIC Magazine". blackleatherincolor.org. Retrieved 2026-04-15.
External links
- 1950 births
- African-American writers
- American non-fiction writers
- BDSM activists
- BDSM writers
- Leather subculture
- American lesbian writers
- African-American LGBTQ people
- Living people
- American women erotica writers
- American erotica writers
- 21st-century African-American people
- 20th-century African-American people
- 20th-century American women writers
- 21st-century American women writers
- African-American women writers
- LGBTQ-related biography stubs
- American writer stubs