Charles S. Johnson was born in Bristol, Virginia. Charles S. Johnson came to New York in 1921 from Chicago. Charles S. Johnson was a member of the Urban League, the man who orchestrated the 1924 Urban League dinner which was the first "meeting of the minds" of the Harlem writers and intelligentsia. Johnson became the editor of the League's magazine, Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, in 1923. His position with Opportunity has associated him as a father of the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson's purpose was to give a voice to African-American culture and writers, which had been ignored by white publishing houses. Opportunity's success later led to the formation of several black publishing houses.
In 1926, Charles was offered the Chair of the Sociology of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he later became the first African-American president of that university. From Fisk, he continued his support of the Harlem Renaissance. |
