Allen Johnson (activist)

Last updated
Allen Johnson
Born
Allen Johnson
OccupationClergyman, activist
Organization(s) Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Political partyDemocratic
Movement Civil Rights Movement, Peace movement

Allen Johnson was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, an activist in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and he was also a minister of religion. Johnson is the grandfather of Georgetown law professor Vida Johnson.

Contents

Early life and family

Johnson was the son of the Reverend L. E. Johnson. L. E. Johnson, was the head pastor at Pratt Memorial United Methodist Church in Jackson, Mississippi. [1] After heading the church for four years, L. E. Johnson became district superintendent of the Jackson District. [1] Johnson was an officer in the United States Army. [2]

Minister

In 1963, Johnson, like his father once had, became the head pastor at Pratt Memorial United Methodist Church in Jackson, Mississippi. [1] Johnson helped the church with fundraising and organization. [1] Johnson organized an inspirational choir, a youth choir and a children's choir. With the fruits of Johnson's fundraising efforts, funds were used to pay off the church and parsonage indebtedness. [1]

Civil rights movement leader

Evers march

In 1963, after Medgar Evers was assassinated by white supremacists for his civil rights leadership, an estimated five thousand people marched from the Masonic Temple on Lynch Street to the Collins Funeral Home on North Farish Street in Jackson. Johnson, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders led the procession. [3]

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

In 1966, Johnson hosted the Tenth Annual Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the Masonic Temple in Jackson. [4] The theme of the conference was human rights - the continuing struggle. [4] Those in attendance, among others, included: Dr. King, Edward Kennedy, James Bevel, Ralph Abernathy, Curtis W. Harris, Walter E. Fauntroy, C. T. Vivian, Andrew Young, The Freedom Singers, Charles Evers, Fred Shuttlesworth, Cleveland Robinson, Randolph Blackwell, Annie Bell Robinson Devine, Charles Kenzie Steele, Alfred Daniel Williams King, Benjamin Hooks, Aaron Henry and Bayard Rustin. [4]

March Against Fear

Also, in 1966, Johnson participated in the March Against Fear, which is also known as the "Meredith March." At the closing rally near the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson, Johnson preached alongside Dr. King. [5] Dr. King spoke of his dream "that one day the empty stomachs of Mississippi will be filled, that the idle industries of Appalachia will be revitalized." [5] Johnson prayed from the thirteenth chapter of Hebrews: "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unaware. Remember them that are in bonds as though bond with them, and them which suffer adversity, as being ourselves also in body." [5] [6]

Klan bombing

In the fall of 1967, the Ku Klux Klan placed a bomb under the floor of a parsonage where Johnson and his family slept. The parsonage was connected to St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Laurel, Mississippi. However, no one was injured when the bomb exploded. [7] Allen Johnson and his family were targeted because he was an activist in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the larger civil rights movement. [8] [9] The bombing was part of several months of violence by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi. [7] [10] The morning after the bombing, Johnson's wife sent her children to school so that everyone in town knew that the Johnson family was not intimidated by the bombing. [7]

NAACP

Johnson was active in the NAACP. [11] At one time, Johnson was the Mississippi NAACP assistant field secretary. [12] Through his participation in the NAACP, Johnson participated in the Mississippi Voter Registration and Education League (MVREL). [12] In the spring of 1967, Johnson coordinated eight MVREL seminars to train people in voter registration. [12]

Business leader

Johnson led a businessman's parade in Jackson and was beaten during that peaceful demonstration. [2] Johnson recalled: "It was during this demonstration that this white man who struck me said, 'You cannot walk on our street.' We have heard them say, 'My state.' We want to say, 'Our state.' We have fought for it, we have bled for it, we are concerned, our children are in it, and we want to help it." [2]

Political involvement

Johnson was interested in politics and considered running for public office. [2] Around 1967, Johnson and Charles Evers decided to start a very quiet whispering campaign that encouraged blacks to vote for William Winter in the Mississippi's governor's race. [13] The leaders whispered because any public expression of black support would have damaged a white candidate in the eyes of many white voters. [13]

In 1968, with the support of the Mississippi AFL-CIO, Johnson coordinated workshops that taught African-Americans how to participate in local Democratic party meetings. [12] Johnson and other activists aimed to send a delegation to the 1968 Democratic National Convention. [12]

Death and legacy

In 2013, United States Congressional Representative Bennie Thompson honored Pratt Memorial United Methodist Church and Johnson. [1] Johnson's activism inspired his granddaughter, Vida Johnson, to go to law school. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Civil rights movement</span> 1954–1968 U.S. social movement against institutional racism

The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the United States. The movement had its origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, although it made its largest legislative gains in the 1960s after years of direct actions and grassroots protests. The social movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medgar Evers</span> African-American civil rights activist and NAACP field officer (1925–1963)

Medgar Wiley Evers was an American civil rights activist and the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi, who was murdered by Byron De La Beckwith. Evers, a decorated U.S. Army combat veteran who had served in World War II, was engaged in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi, end the segregation of public facilities, and expand opportunities for African Americans including the enforcement of voting rights.

The Deacons for Defense and Justice was an armed African-American self-defense group founded in November 1964, during the civil rights era in the United States, in the mill town of Bogalusa, Louisiana. On February 21, 1965—the day of Malcolm X's assassination—the first affiliated chapter was founded in Bogalusa, Louisiana, followed by a total of 20 other chapters in this state, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama. It was intended to protect civil rights activists and their families, threatened both by white vigilantes and discriminatory treatment by police under Jim Crow laws. The Bogalusa chapter gained national attention during the summer of 1965 in its violent struggles with the Ku Klux Klan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southern Christian Leadership Conference</span> African-American civil rights organization

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civil rights movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Selma to Montgomery marches</span> 1965 nonviolent protests for African-American voting rights in the US state of Alabama

The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the desire of African-American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of segregationist repression; they were part of a broader voting rights movement underway in Selma and throughout the American South. By highlighting racial injustice, they contributed to passage that year of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark federal achievement of the civil rights movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Citizens' Councils</span> American segregationist organizations

The Citizens' Councils were an associated network of white supremacist, segregationist organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South and created as part of a white backlash against the US Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling. The first was formed on July 11, 1954. The name was changed to the Citizens' Councils of America in 1956. With about 60,000 members across the Southern United States, the groups were founded primarily to oppose racial integration of public schools: the logical conclusion of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ella Baker</span> African-American civil rights activist

Ella Josephine Baker was an African-American civil rights and human rights activist. She was a largely behind-the-scenes organizer whose career spanned more than five decades. In New York City and the South, she worked alongside some of the most noted civil rights leaders of the 20th century, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr. She also mentored many emerging activists, such as Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, and Bob Moses, as leaders in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Chaney</span> American KKK murder victim (d. 1964)

James Earl Chaney was one of three Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) civil rights workers killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan on June 21, 1964. The others were Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner from New York City.

This is a timeline of African-American history, the part of history that deals with African Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aaron Henry (politician)</span> American civil rights leader and politician

Aaron Henry was an American civil rights leader, politician, and head of the Mississippi branch of the NAACP. He was one of the founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party which tried to seat their delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

Victoria Jackson Gray Adams was an American civil rights activist from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She was one of the founding members of the influential Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) was a coalition of the major Civil Rights Movement organizations operating in Mississippi. COFO was formed in 1961 to coordinate and unite voter registration and other civil rights activities in the state and oversee the distribution of funds from the Voter Education Project. It was instrumental in forming the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. COFO member organizations included the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lillie Mae Carroll Jackson</span> American activist

Lillie May Carroll Jackson, pioneer civil rights activist, organizer of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP. Invariably known as "Dr. Lillie", "Ma Jackson", and the "mother of the civil rights movement", Lillie May Carroll Jackson pioneered the tactic of non-violent resistance to racial segregation used by Martin Luther King Jr. and others during the early civil rights movement.

Colia L. Liddell Lafayette Clark was an American activist and politician. Clark was the Green Party's candidate for the United States Senate in New York in 2010 and 2012.

The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) was an American civil rights organization in Birmingham, Alabama, which coordinated boycotts and sponsored federal lawsuits aimed at dismantling segregation in Birmingham and Alabama during the civil rights movement. Fred Shuttlesworth, pastor of Bethel Baptist Church, served as president of the group from its founding in 1956 until 1969. The ACMHR's crowning moment came during the pivotal Birmingham campaign which it coordinated along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference during the spring of 1963.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Allen</span> American businessman and murder victim

Louis Allen was an African-American businessman in Liberty, Mississippi, who was shot and killed on his land during the civil rights era. He had previously tried to register to vote and had allegedly talked to federal officials after witnessing the 1961 murder of Herbert Lee, an NAACP member, by E. H. Hurst, a white state legislator. Civil rights activists had come to Liberty that summer to organize for voter registration, as no African-American had been allowed to vote since the state's disenfranchising constitution was passed in 1890.

The history of the 1954 to 1968 American civil rights movement has been depicted and documented in film, song, theater, television, and the visual arts. These presentations add to and maintain cultural awareness and understanding of the goals, tactics, and accomplishments of the people who organized and participated in this nonviolent movement.

Hartman Turnbow was a Mississippi farmer, orator, and activist during the Civil Rights Movement. On April 9, 1963, Turnbow was one of the first African Americans to attempt to register to vote in Mississippi, along with a group called the “First Fourteen”.

This is a timeline of the civil rights movement in the United States, a nonviolent mid-20th century freedom movement to gain legal equality and the enforcement of constitutional rights for people of color. The goals of the movement included securing equal protection under the law, ending legally institutionalized racial discrimination, and gaining equal access to public facilities, education reform, fair housing, and the ability to vote.

Ralph Edwin King Jr., better known as Ed King, is a United Methodist minister, civil rights activist, and retired educator. He was a key figure in historic civil rights events taking place in Mississippi, including the Jackson Woolworth’s sit-in of 1963 and the Freedom Summer project in 1964. Rev. King held the position of Chaplain and Dean of Students, 1963–1967, at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. At this critical juncture of the civil rights movement, historian John Dittmer described King as “the most visible white activist in the Mississippi movement.”

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Thompson, Bennie. "Honoring Pratt Memorial United Methodist Church". Library of Congress. Retrieved 7 September 2015.[ permanent dead link ]
  2. 1 2 3 4 Mills, Kay (August 2007). This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer . The University of Press of Kentucky. p.  352 . Retrieved 7 September 2015. reverend allen johnson.
  3. ↑ O'Brien, M. J. (March 1, 2013). We Shall Not Be Moved: The Jackson Woolworth's Sit-In and the Movement It Inspired. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 118. ISBN   9781617037436 . Retrieved 7 September 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 "Program from the SCLC's Tenth Annual Convention". The King Center. Archived from the original on 26 September 2015. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 Branch, Taylor (2006). At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 . Simon & Schuster. Retrieved 7 September 2015. reverend allen johnson.
  6. ↑ Hebrews 13:2
  7. 1 2 3 4 Smith, Abbe; Freedman, Monroe. How Can You Represent Those People. palgrave.
  8. ↑ Dittmer, John (1994). Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi . University of Illinois Press.
  9. ↑ Johnston, Araminta (17 December 2010). And One Was a Priest: The Life and Times of Duncan M. Gray Jr. University of Press of Mississippi. ISBN   9781604738292 . Retrieved 7 September 2015.
  10. ↑ Garrow, David. "Many Birminghams: Taking Segregationists Seriously". Southern Changes. Archived from the original on 1 February 2016. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
  11. ↑ Sweet, Grace (2013). Church Street: The Sugar Hill of Jackson, Mississippi. The History Press. ISBN   9781626191112 . Retrieved 7 September 2015.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 Draper, Alan (1994). Conflict of Interests: Organized Labor and the Civil Rights Movement in the South, 1954 - 1968. Cornell University. ISBN   0875463169 . Retrieved 8 September 2015.
  13. 1 2 Bolton, Charles (8 July 2013). William F. Winter and the New Mississippi: A Biography. The University Press of Mississippi. ISBN   9781617037870 . Retrieved 7 September 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.