Charles S. Johnson Biography, Life, Interesting Facts

Sociologist

Birthday :

July 24, 1893

Died On :

October 27, 1956

Birth Place :

Bristol, Virginia, United States Of America

Zodiac Sign :

Leo

Childhood and Early Life

American sociologist and college administrator Charles Spurgeon Johnson was born in Bristol, Virginia, on July 24, 1893.

Education

Charles S. Johnson was educated at Wayland Academy then enrolled at Virginia Union University, Richmond where he obtained a B.A. degree. He studied sociology with Robert E. Park at the University of Chicago and was awarded a doctorate in 1917.

Rise to Fame

During his years as a student in Chicago, Charles S. Johnson was a director of research and investigation at the Chicago Urban League. He also worked with Carter G. Woodson at the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Later, the relationship between the two men broke down.

World War I

Charles S. Johnson went to France as a member of the U.S. Army during World War I (1914-1918).

Career

Charles S. Johnson worked for the Chicago Commission on Race Relations (1919-1921). In 1920, he was appointed the director of research at the National Urban League in New York City. In 1926, Johnson was appointed the chair of the Department Sociology at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Johnson was also appointed the first African-American president of Fisk University in 1946. The same year he was selected to join a team of American educators to advise on educational reform in Japan. He was chosen as an inaugural member of the Board of Foreign Scholarships for the Fulbright Program.

Publications

In 1922, Charles S. Johnson published The Negro in Chicago, a study of the race riot which took place in Chicago in July 1919. Other books include The Negro in American Civilization (1930), Shadow of the Plantation (1934), The Negro College Graduate (1936), In Growing Up in the Black Belt (1941) and, Patterns of Negro Segregation (1943).