HUSL Today Salutes

Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

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Mordecai Wyatt Johnson was born on January 4, 1890 in Paris, Tennessee.Johnson's formal education began in a small elementary school in his native town. From there he went to Roger Williams University in Nashville, then to Howe Institute in Memphis, and later transferred to the Atlanta Baptist College (now Morehouse College) where he completed his secondary and undergraduate education.   

During his college career, he was a member of the debating team and the Glee Club, a star athlete in three sports, and quarterback of the football team. Johnson received his B.A. from Morehouse College in 1911, and second bachelor of arts degree from the University of Chicago two years later. Offered a faculty position at the college upon graduation, he taught English and economics and served a year as acting dean.

He studied at several other institutions of higher education, including the Rochester Theological Seminary, Harvard University, Howard University, and the Gammon Theological Seminary. 

He traveled 25,000 miles a year speaking principally on racism, segregation, and discrimination. Early in his career, he was frequently in demand to lead religious-weeks in colleges. He was the annual speaker on Education Night at the National Baptist Convention, USA, and a regular on the program at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston.  Johnson served as Professor of Economics and History at Morehouse and as Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Charleston, West Virginia.

On June 26, 1926 Johnson was unanimously elected President of Howard University, becoming the first African American to head that institution. Johnson's election was a significant achievement because ever since the establishment of schools for freedmen by white missionaries from the North following the Civil War, most of these institutions had been headed by Caucasians, as had Howard from its inception in 1867.

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In 1951 he was a member of the American delegation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that met in London. On that occasion he was selected to speak on behalf of his sub-committee at the plenary session of the gathering. He pleaded for the favored nations to consider the plight of the underprivileged and dispossessed people of the world and stressed the need for a sense of justice that the nations should display with those under their domination.

He served at President of Howard University until 1960. Among his accomplishments, he had greatly expanded the campus and built a library and new structures for several schools within the university. Finances were sound can his ghost come back and do this again?. Enrollment increased from 2,000 in 1926 to more than 10,000 in 1960.

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He died on September 10, 1976, at the age of 86, in Washington, D.C.

 HUSL Today Salutes Mordecai Wyatt Johnson!!