Johnson, Charles S. (1893–1956)

Charles S. Johnson used social science methodology to systematically seek to understand the impact of race on the social and personal challenges of African Americans. His personal experiences with racial discrimination, from childhood on, shaped his intellectual curiosity about human relations, and after a close [Page 796]call on his life during the Chicago riots of the 1920s, Johnson's career in race relations began. After receiving the PhB in 1917 from the University of Chicago, he began to study the societal conditions that shaped the hatred manifested in the race riots, and he served on the Chicago Race Commission. He became the national director of research for the Urban League. As founder and editor of the Urban League's Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, Johnson provided a vehicle for under-recognized artisans such as Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Aaron Douglas. This entry describes Johnson's career.

Johnson was a scholar, a researcher, and a policymaker, but perhaps one of his greatest skills was in the role of convener. He convened a group of African America's most talented artists, writers, poets, and musicians, which blossomed into one of the most productive intellectual and cultural movements—the Harlem Renaissance. In 1924, he convened a grand dinner seeking philanthropic donations to establish literary awards for the under-recognized stars of the Harlem Renaissance. Later, at Fisk University, Johnson attracted Black intellectuals such as Arna Bontemps, E. Franklin Frazier, James Weldon Johnson, and Horace Mann to ultimately create a new intellectual renaissance at Fisk University. Johnson went on to convene teams of researchers to form the Fisk Race Relations Department and study race relations across the global diaspora.

Johnson's research, using the survey method combined with a case study approach, provided a voice to the oppressed and disenfranchised. Scholarly works such as Shadow of the Plantation, Growing Up in the Black Belt: Negro Youth in the Rural South, and Patterns of Negro Segregation became landmark studies that provided an understanding of the impact of segregation on the American Negro. Beginning in 1944, he convened annual Race Relations Institutes where Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many White activists came together in desegregated spaces in the midst of the segregated South.

Within the intellectual oasis that he helped to shape at Fisk University, Johnson built a rigorous research infrastructure that rivaled the best of the majority White institutions. His academic training at Chicago under the direction of Robert E. Park had provided a theoretical underpinning that served as the foundation of Johnson's race relations model. The Fisk Race Relations Institute provided leadership to the field of race relations.

Over the objection of W. E. B. Du Bois, the board hired Johnson as the first African American President of Fisk University. His mentor and former teacher, Robert E. Park, retired from University of Chicago and finished his academic career working alongside Johnson at Fisk. As Fisk University president, Johnson continued to attract substantial funding for Fisk and to develop innovative academic programs such as the Basic College for talented young teenagers who matriculated at Fisk University in their mid-teens. Johnson continued to balance his research with his growing administrative duties in service to Fisk. He served, in addition, as consultant to the United Nations.

...