Home / Full timeline / Charles Spurgeon Johnson began his administration as president of Fisk University, becoming the first Black man to head the University.
Charles Spurgeon Johnson began his administration as president of Fisk University, becoming the first Black man to head the University.
1947 (Sep 1)
Charles Spurgeon Johnson began his administration as president of Fisk University, becoming the first Black man to head the Nashville institution. Johnson was born in Bristol, Virginia, in 1893 and was educated at Virginia Union University and the University of Chicago. From 1917 to 1919, he directed the Division of Research for the Chicago Urban League while also investigating black migration for the Carnegie Foundation. Johnson served on the Chicago Committee on Race Relations from 1923 to 1929. When Johnson assumed the presidency of Fisk University, he had already become a sociologist and writer. He founded and edited the National Urban League's house organ, Opportunity Magazine, in 1923 and sponsored literary contests for young Black writers during the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson's major published works include Shadow of the Plantation (1934), The Collapse of Cotton Tenancy (1934), The Negro College Graduate (1938), and Growing Up in the Black Belt (1941). Johnson died in 1956.
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.