Charles S. Johnson

Sociologist, writer, and educator

• Born: July 24, 1893
• Birthplace: Bristol, Virginia
• Died: October 27, 1956
• Place of death: Louisville, Kentucky

The preeminent African American sociologist of the twentieth century, Johnson applied scientific survey methods to the race problem. During the Harlem Renaissance, he published the influential journal Opportunity. Later, his vision redefined and enhanced the reputation of the Department of Social Science at Fisk University. In 1946, Johnson was appointed Fisk’s first African American president.

Early Life

Charles Spurgeon Johnson was the eldest son of Charles Henry Johnson, a former slave. Johnson’s grandmother had worked in the house of a slave owner who educated Charles Henry along with his own son at home. Afterward, the slave owner sent both boys to Richmond, Virginia, for further education. Charles Henry attended Richmond Institute. After earning a doctor of divinity degree in 1883, he became an itinerant Baptist preacher in Virginia. In about 1885, he married Winifred Branch from Lynchburg, Virginia, who gave birth to the couple’s six children. Johnson was born July 24, 1893, in Bristol, Virginia. He was named for the English Baptist preacher, author, and editor Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Johnson’s father gave him a classical-liberal education steeped in philosophy, religion, and history.

Because there were no high schools in Bristol, Johnson followed in his father’s footsteps and went to Richmond to attend Wayland Academy. He shined shoes in a barbershop and worked in hotels and resorts in order to pay his way through school. By 1899, Wayland had combined with Richmond Institute to form Virginia Union. Johnson earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1916. That year, he had a life-changing experience. On Christmas Day, he was assessing recipients for Christmas baskets on behalf of the Richmond Welfare Association when he encountered a pregnant African American woman in labor in a run-down shack. He managed to get a midwife to help her but never forgot that the woman had been abandoned by her family and community. Another defining moment came later, when Johnson was exposed to racial tensions during the Red Summer of 1919.

In 1916, Johnson went to Chicago to begin graduate work at the University of Chicago. He was mentored by Robert Ezra Park, who led him to sociology as a field of study. Johnson earned a Ph.D. from Chicago in 1917 and then served in the U.S. Army during World War I. In 1919, he returned to Chicago to work under Park. On July 27, 1919, several black children who were swimming at a public beach drifted beyond the area designated for African Americans. Incensed whites stoned one of the boys, Eugene Williams, to death. A crowd of African Americans and whites gathered but the police arrested only a black man. When African Americans attacked the white arresting officer, a riot began. During the course of the rioting, 38 people were killed (23 of them black) and 537 were wounded. Almost one thousand families were left homeless, nearly all of them African Americans. Johnson worked on the ensuing report for the Chicago Commission on Race Relations, which was titled The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot (1922). The report was noteworthy for the application of scientific objectivity to the emotional issue of race.

Life’s Work

Johnson married Marie Antoinette Burgette in 1920 and they had four children. In 1921, he went to New York as director of the Department of Research and Investigations for the National Urban League. He directed the economic and sociological research of the League and founded and edited the journal Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life. Published from 1923 to 1949, Opportunity was a major periodical during the Harlem Renaissance, publishing literature and poetry written by African Americans as well as sociological reports on African American life. This was particularly important because many publishing venues were closed to African Americans.

In 1928, Johnson left New York and became the chair of the Department of Social Sciences at Fisk University. As a result, a series of Race Relations Institutes were held in the South and elsewhere from 1944 to 1969. The institutes convened an interracial group of scholars, community activists, social, civic, and religious leaders to further civil rights and promote racial tolerance through discourse and study. During this period, Johnson’s scholarly productivity also peaked. Using the survey method he learned in Chicago, he wrote Shadow of the Plantation (1934) and Growing Up in the Black Belt (1938). He used statistical analysis in The Negro in American Civilization (1930), The Collapse of Cotton Tenancy (1935), and The Negro College Graduate (1938).

As a result of Johnson’s nonconfrontational approach and desire to find ways in which whites and African Americans could work cooperatively, several philanthropic entities supported his research and invited him to serve in an advisory capacity. His ability to convince white philanthropic organizations such as the General Education Board,Phelps-Stokes Fund, Julius Rosenwald Fund, and Rockefeller Foundation to provide research funding for the study of African American communities made him one of the leading sociologists of the twentieth century. As a member of the board of trustees of the Rosenwald Fund, he cowrote The Collapse of Cotton Tenancy with Edwin R. Embree, the president of the Rosenwald board, and W. W. Alexander, a board member. Johnson and Alexander codirected the fund’s Commission on Interracial Cooperation, which was established in 1942.

In 1930, Johnson was appointed by the State Department to represent the United States on the International Commission of the League of Nations to investigate slavery in Liberia. In 1931, he received the William E. Harmon Foundation Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Achievement among African Americans in the field of science. He served several presidents, among them Herbert C. Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. During the New Deal, he was a member of the Committee on Farm Tenancy.

In 1946, Johnson was named president of Fisk University, the first African American to hold that position. He served until 1956. From 1944 to 1950, he was director of the Race Relations Division of the American Missionary Association of the Congregational and Christian Churches of America. In 1955, he was invited by the Social Sciences Section of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to participate in—and later chair—a conference of world experts on race relations. Johnson died the next year at age sixty-three.

Significance

Johnson was a leading sociologist who followed in the tradition of Park and the Chicago School. He used qualitative methods and data analysis to expose the economic and social effects of racism on society. Johnson preferred to work with whites to study race as a social problem that could be overcome by cooperation and research. As the first black president of Fisk, he elevated the reputation of a historically black institution as a research center. Ultimately, his contribution to the Harlem Renaissance (through Opportunity), his leadership on the Race Relations Institute, and his scholarship helped interpret the causes and effects of the Great Migration and foreshadowed the events of the Civil Rights movement.

Bibliography

Gilpin, Patrick J., and Marybeth Gasman. Charles S. Johnson: Leadership Beyond the Veil in an Age of Jim Crow. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Well-researched, thorough biography that places Johnson among the major African American intellectuals of the early twentieth century.

Richardson, Joe M. A History of Fisk University, 1865-1946. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1980. Examines Johnson’s work in Fisk’s Department of Social Sciences and its significance.

Sanders, Katrina M.“Intelligent and Effective Direction”: The Fisk University Race Relations Institute and the Struggle for Civil Rights, 1944-1969. New York: Peter Lang, 2005. History of Fisk’s Race Relations Institute that examines Johnson’s role in bringing together scholars and activists to work for civil rights.

Wright, Earl, II. “The Tradition of Sociology at Fisk University.” Journal of African American Studies 14, no. 1 (2010): 44-60. Johnson plays a large role in this study of the history and development of Fisk’s sociology program.