the army, becoming an infantry lieutenant. After the war he returned to Alabama to practice law. Appointed to the federal district court for middle Alabama in 1955, he became widely known for his decisions in support of the civil rights movement. In 1955 he voted with the majority to strike down the bus-segregation law challenged by Rosa Parks, and in 1965 he issued the order that allowed Martin Luther King, Jr., to lead a historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery. He also ordered the desegre¬ gation of various public facilities in Alabama, and he was the first fed¬ eral judge to dictate legislative reapportionment. He served on the U.S. District Court of Appeals from 1979 to 1992. In 1995 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Johnson, Jack in full John Arthur Johnson (b. Mar. 31, 1878, Galveston, Tex., U.S.—d. June 10,
1946, Raleigh, N.C.) U.S. boxer, the first black to hold the title for the heavyweight championship of the world. Johnson’s career was marked from the beginning by racial dis¬ crimination; until his match with Tommy Burns, he had a difficult time getting fights. Johnson won the heavyweight crown in 1908 by knocking out Burns and kept it until 1915, when he was knocked out by Jess Willard in 26 rounds. At the height of his career, Johnson was excoriated by the press for having twice married white women, and he further offended white supremacists by knocking out former champion James J. Jeffries, who was induced to come out of retirement as a “Great White Hope.” In 1912 Johnson was convicted of violating the Mann Act for transporting his wife-to-be across state lines before their marriage. He was sentenced to a year in prison and was released on bond; he fled to Canada, made his way to Europe, and was a fugitive for seven years. He defended the championship three times in Paris before agreeing to fight Willard in Havana, Cuba. Some observers thought that Johnson, mistak¬ enly believing that the charge against him would be dropped if he yielded the championship to a white man, deliberately lost to Willard. Johnson surrendered to U.S. authorities in 1920 to serve a one-year sentence. From 1897 to 1928, Johnson had 114 bouts, winning 80, 45 by knockouts.
Johnson, James P(rice) (b. Feb. 1, 1894, New Brunswick, N.J., U.S.—d. Nov. 17, 1955, New York, N.Y.) U.S. pianist and composer, a chief figure in the transition of ragtime to jazz. Johnson was performing in saloons and at parties in New York City’s African American commu¬ nity while still in his teens. He created the stride piano technique, a devel¬ opment of ragtime that used two-beat left-hand rhythms to accompany wide-ranging right-hand lines, in pieces such as “Carolina Shout” and “Harlem Strut.” He composed and orchestrated music for stage revues, including Keep Shufflin’ (1928) with his student Fats Waller. His songs include “The Charleston” (largely responsible for the 1920s dance craze) and “Old Fashioned Love”; his large-scale works include the Harlem Symphony (1932).
Johnson, James Weldon (b. June 17, 1871, Jacksonville, Fla., U.S.—d. June 26, 1938, Wiscasset, Maine) U.S. writer. He practiced law in Florida before moving with his brother, the composer J. Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954), to New York; there the two collaborated on some 200 songs for the Broadway stage. Johnson held diplomatic posts in Ven¬ ezuela and Nicaragua and served as executive secretary of the NAACP (1920-30). From 1930 he taught at Fisk University. His writings include the novel Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917), and his best-known work, God’s Trombones (1927), a group of dialect sermons in verse. The brothers collaborated on the pio¬ neering anthologies Book of American Negro Poetry (1922) and Ameri¬ can Negro Spirituals (1925, 1926). Their most famous original song, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” became an anthem of the civil rights movement.
Johnson Vjan-son\, John H(arold) (b. Jan. 19, 1918, Arkansas City, Ark., U.S.—d. Aug. 8, 2005, Chicago, Ill.) U.S. magazine and book pub¬ lisher. He moved to Chicago with his family and became a journalist. In 1942 he introduced Negro Digest , a periodical for blacks. Three years later he launched Ebony, a magazine he modeled on Life ; by 2004 it had a cir¬ culation of some 1.7 million. Through Johnson PLiblishing Co., he also published black-oriented books and other magazines, and he later moved into radio broadcasting, insurance, and cosmetics manufacturing.
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Johnson, Lyndon B(aines) (b. Aug. 27, 1908, Gillespie county, Texas, U.S.—d. Jan. 22, 1973, San Antonio, Texas) 36th president of the U.S. (1963-69). He taught school in Houston, Texas, before going to Washington, D.C., in 1932 as a congressional aide. In Washington he was befriended by Sam Rayburn, speaker of the House of Representatives, and his political career blossomed. He won a seat in the U.S. House (1937— 49) as a supporter of the New Deal, which was under conservative attack. His loyalty impressed Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who made Johnson his protege. He won election to the U.S. Senate in 1949 in a vicious cam¬ paign that involved fraud on both sides. As Democratic whip (1951-55) and majority leader (1955-61), he developed a talent for consensus build¬ ing through methods both tactful and ruthless. He was largely responsible for passage of the civil rights bills of 1957 and 1960, the first in the 20th century. In 1960 he was elected vice president under John F. Kennedy; he became president after Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. In his first few months in office he won passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the most comprehensive and far-reaching legislation of its kind in American his¬ tory. Later that year he announced his Great Society program of social- welfare and civil rights legislation. His attention to domestic matters, however, was diverted by the country’s escalating involvement in the Vietnam War (see Gulf of Tonkin Resolution), which provoked large stu¬ dent demonstrations and other protests, beginning in the late 1960s. Mean¬ while, discontent and alienation among the young and racial minorities increased as the promises of the Great Society failed to materialize. By 1967 Johnson’s popularity had declined steeply, and in early 1968 he announced that he would not seek reelection. He retired to his Texas ranch.
Johnson, Magic orig. Earvin Johnson, Jr. (b. Aug. 14, 1959, Lansing, Mich., U.S.) U.S. basketball player. He led Michigan State Uni¬ versity to the collegiate championship in 1979 and led the NBA Los Angeles Lakers to five championships in the 1980s. Standing 6 ft 9 in. (2.06 m) tall, he was exceptionally tall for a point guard and was able to use his size to rebound and score inside. However, he was best known for his creative passing and expert floor leadership. He was named Most Valuable Player three times (1987, 1989, 1990). He retired after being diagnosed with HIV in 1991, though he returned to the Lakers for brief stints as a player and as a coach.
Johnson, Michael (Duane) (b. Sept. 13, 1967, Dallas, Texas, U.S.) U.S. sprinter. For much of the 1990s he was virtually unbeaten in the 200-m and 400-m races. He shared an Olympic gold medal in 1992 on the world-record-setting 4 x 400-m relay team, and at the 1996 Olympics he became the first man to win gold medals in both the 200 m and 400 m, setting a world record of 19.32 seconds in the 200 m. In 1999 he set a new world record of 43.18 seconds in the 400 m. In the 2000 Olym¬ pics he again won two gold medals.
Johnson, Philip C(ortelyou) (b. July 8, 1906, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.—d. January 25, 2005, New Canaan, Conn.) U.S. architect and critic. He studied philosophy and architec¬ ture at Harvard University. As coau¬ thor of The International Style:
Architecture Since 1922 (1932) and director of the architecture depart¬ ment (1932-34, 1946-54) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, he did much to familiarize Americans with modern European architecture. He gained fame with his own Glass House (1949), which struck a balance between the influ¬ ence of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (later his collaborator on the Seagram Building) and Classical allusion. His style took a striking turn with the AT&T headquarters, New York (1984), a controversial postmodern¬ ist landmark. In 1979 Johnson became the first recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.