On May 25, 2023 the Houston Museum of African American Culture CEO John Guess, Jr. was awarded an Honorary Degree of Humane Letters from the Johns Hopkins University (JHU). Guess, who was cited as a Businessman, Social Advocate and Arts Patron, was joined by six other honorees that grew to a total of eight when surprise Johns Hopkins Commencement speaker Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy became an Honorary degree recipient.

According to Johns Hopkins President Ron Daniels, "I am truly thrilled that we will have the opportunity to celebrate your legacy supporting African American cultural and artistic heritage, and your years of engagement with our university. You have done so much to support generations of Hopkins students and to keep our university moving forward toward becoming not only a more diverse, but equitable place.”

As a student at Hopkins John founded the Black Student Union, was the first Black president of student government before serving on the first Congressional Black Caucus staff and as Senior Legislative Assistant for the Hon. Parren J. Mitchell, MC. as well as working as a former Chase Manhattan banker in New York City and Sao Paulo, Brazil and former Merrill Lynch Financial Advisor in Houston.

John, who holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and an MA in International Affairs from Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, Nanking, China and Bologna, Italy, is an enthusiastic supporter of Johns Hopkins, accelerated his support of African American initiatives at John Hopkins in the 1980s when he began funding summer programs through the then Department of Multicultural Affairs for Johns Hopkins African American students to do internships in France, China, Jamaica, and the United States. One of those recipients is now a State Senator for Maryland. John continues to fund Hopkins African American projects, including the Black Student Union (BSU), where he funds tickets to Baltimore Ravens games for students, the printing of the BSU color newsletter and trips for student events outside of Maryland; funds with the President’s Office the Black Faculty Staff Association’s Indispensable Role of Blacks at JHU project, and funds the Center for Africana Studies, especially as lead sponsor of the Franklin Knight Symposium.

According to President Daniels, “Beyond our institution, John’s ambition and vision has made the museum one of Houston’s most dynamic destinations. John we thank you for your continued leadership here and around the country for making it possible for so many black Americans not only to sit with Shakespeare, but with Dubois, DuVernay, and of course with one another.”

At HMAAC, John organized and managed museum exhibitions schedules from 2014 to 2020, curating well received and reviewed exhibitions including Sandra Bland, The Abolitionists, Revelation of Goddesses: Retrospective of Eleanor Merritt, The Art of Malick Sidibe, Indifference, Riding The Tiger: The Art of Berg Long, Jr., Kingdom of Gold: The Photography of Ellen Kaplowitz, Close to Home: Latinx Art and Identity 2.0, etc. As the youngest African American cultural asset in Houston but as the most attended, the Museum has been the subject of three Ph.d dissertations.

John’s insistence on HMAAC becoming a different kind of museum to serve the community resulted in its establishing a singular brand as a “museum in a building and in the community.” Today, the Museum stands alone with a footprint in every part of Houston’s communities of color, including its renowned “message murals,” in the Third Ward, in Sunnyside, in the Fifth Ward, inside Wheatley High School and even in the Harris County Jail’s Women’s Empowerment Center. Museum public art projects have been created in the Fifth Ward and Sunnyside, and its “MASK UP” campaign during the pandemic resulted in artists signs throughout the inner city. John worked with Rodshir Daily Design Group in Paris to develop a full set of HMAAC NFTs that placed the Musuem’s brand in the metaverse.

In 2021, Guess had the Museum inaugurate its only permanent exhibition, “The Stairwell of Memory,’ which utilized three different artists to memorialize through portraits local victims of police brutality Sandra Bland, George Floyd and Robbie Tolan, and began an annual Bland, Floyd, Tolan lecture that brings together the mothers of police brutality victims from across the country.

His and the Museum’s association with filmmaker Ava Duvernay and her film distribution company ARRAY stretches back a decade, and includes HMAAC screening ARRAY films and ARRAY inviting the Museum’s Film Curator to special national confabs as well as providing HMAAC with financial support. This association was the basis of HMAAC becoming “Houston’s Black Film House”, as the Museum presented Houston’s first advance screening of Black Panther, and provided drive-in movies in low income areas during COVID-19.

John has kept the museum involved in national arts and culture discussions, especially difficult ones. Most recently he negotiated for HMAAC to become the only African American cultural asset to own and interpret a Confederate monument. For his efforts he and the Museum are featured in the best selling book Smashing Statues by Erin Thompson, and will be featured in an upcoming film on monuments produced by Debi Wisch and Amy Hobby.

Johns Hopkins involvement with HMAAC was almost from the beginning. As Guess has stated, “ Hopkins allowed this new museum to have an intellectual foundation that expanded to realms outside of Houston.” HMAAC collaborated with the Johns Hopkins Center for Africana Studies (CAS) on two national symposia; “The African Presence in Mexico” with CAS Director Ben Vinson, the incoming president of Howard University, which brought to Houston scholars from Mexico and the United States and Afropolitans with CAS Director and then Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Professor of History Franklin Knight, who gave the opening address when the museum opened its doors on a regular basis in 2012. In addition, HMAAC has welcomed visits by current Maryland Governor and Johns Hopkins graduate Wes Moore, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, Professor of History, Professor at the SNF Agora Institute Martha S. Jones, former CAS Director Katrina McDonald and most recently current CAS Director Minkah Mikalani. And JHU President Ron Daniels made a special trip to Houston to visit the Museum.

Outside of the Museum and Johns Hopkins, John has used his influence to have the oral histories of HMAAC founder and Mayor Lee P. Brown, Rev. William Lawson, and former Texas Southern Debate Coach the Late Thomas Freeman included in the National Museum of African American History and Culture national oral histories.

He has produced three award-winning films, The Hand We’ve Been Dealt: Borderline Houston and Telling Our Story: Conversations on Race, Reconciliation and the Future of the Black Church in the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, and the cult classic film Bert about the late Houston artist Bert Long, Jr., and co-produced a Town Hall meeting hosted by Alfre Woodard and Hill Harper for the Congressional Black Caucus at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

John has interviewed national and world leaders including Nobel Prize Winner Wole Soyinka, MacArthur Fellow Joyce Scott, and Dr. Cassius Lubisi, former Presidency Director-General for the Republic of South Africa. He also serves on the McKinsey & Company Executive Online Panel.

Guess has served on the Smithsonian Regional Council, on the boards of the MFAH Glassell School and CORE Committee, the Houston Arts Alliance, the Contemporary Art Museum, the Cynthia Woods Center for the Arts, the Episcopal Diocese St. Vincent’s House, and the family Fred C. Johnson Foundation.

John is an enthusiastic collector of African American, glass, and contemporary art. Works from the Guess-Lawson Collection have been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX; Roswell Museum & Arts Center, Roswell, NM; Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX; Bellville Museum of Art, Bellville TX; and the Afrika Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Guess-Lawson Collection has donated works to the Menil Collection in Houston and the Blanton Museum in Austin. Along with Melanie Lawson, John has been honored by numerous organizations in the cultural world, including the Community Artist Collective, Houston, TX; Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX; DiverseWorks, Houston, TX; Bayou City Arts Festival, Houston, TX; and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX. In 2022, John and Melanie Lawson were cited by PaperCity magazine as being among the Top 25 Collectors in Texas. In 2023, they were honored by The Art League as Texas Patrons of the Year.

At John’s 50th Class Reunion, a former editor of the Hopkins Student paper recalled, “Life is much better now, that things have been moving in the right direction for the last 50 years. And that’s in part because of what people like John as president of the Student Council were doing to improve undergraduate life a half century ago. They put something in motion that didn’t stop. Some of us were trying to change the world. John was trying to change Hopkins. I think he did a better job.”

Celebrating in Baltimore with John were family members, Melanie Lawson, John III and Carolyn Guess, Carol Guess, Sam E. Guess, Warren Mayberry, and Kimberly Mayberry. Also celebrating with John were Johns Hopkins alumni Lesley King Hammond, DeanArt Emeritus Maryland Institute College of Art; Lowery Stokes Sims, Curator Emeritus Museum of Art and Design and the first Black curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Maryland State Senator Charles Sydnor, Attorney Harry Singleton, Guess’ college roommate, and Attorney Bob Clayton and wife Janine Clayton, NIH Director of Women’s Health Research; and Johns Hopkins Board Member, Renee Chenault-Fattah. Johns Hopkins faculty participating in the celebration were Franklin Knight, Minkah Mikalani, and James Calvin. Martha Jones sent her toast from Paris!