John D'Emilio

John D'Emilio (born 1948) is a professor emeritus of history and of women's and gender studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

His biography of the civil-rights leader Bayard Rustin, Lost Prophet: Bayard Rustin and the Quest for Peace and Justice in America, won the Randy Shilts Award and the Stonewall Book Award for non-fiction in 2004.

In 1999, D'Emilio was Honored with the David R Kessler award for LGBTQ Studies from CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies[6] His and Estelle Freedman's book Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America was cited in Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 American Supreme Court case overturning all remaining anti-sodomy laws.

[9] He received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle in 2013.

Jim Oleson, D'Emilio's partner since the early 1980s, died at their home in Chicago on April 4, 2015.