Rev. Ari Colston Johnson, Princeton University PhD Candidate

Rev. Ari Colston Johnson, JD is a graduate of the University of Miami, where she received her bachelor’s degrees in Religious Studies and International Studies. After college, she completed the dual-degree program in Law and Religion at Emory University, where she earned her Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Emory School of Law and her Master of Divinity (M.Div.) from Candler School of Theology in 2022. At Emory, Ari pursued research and practice interests in property law, historic preservation, and Black land loss prevention. She held several internships with Georgia Department of Natural Resources Historic Preservation Division, Georgia Heirs Property Law Center, and Project South Legal & Advocacy Department, and Georgia Appleseed Center for Law and Justice.

Ari Colston Johnson

Rev. Ari is currently a second-year PhD student at Princeton University, where she specializes in law, urban history, and African American religion. She is also an independent researcher and photographer of abandoned churches. A “preacher's kid” and a daughter of the South Carolina Annual Conference, Rev. Ari is a passionate preacher and teacher in the AME Church. She is an ordained Itinerant Elder in the Sixth Episcopal District, where she served on staff at Flipper Temple AME church under Bishop Gregory Vaughn Eason from 2017 to 2022. She currently ministers at Greater Mt. Zion AME Church in Trenton, NJ under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Charles Boyer.