Vanderbilt Unveils New Bishop Johnson Portrait
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We are excited to announce that Vanderbilt University unveiled a new portrait of Bishop Joseph A. Johnson, Jr., along with the portraits of other Vanderbilt trailblazers during Homecoming weekend on October 13, 2018. Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos unveiled four portraits as part of a new “Vanderbilt Trailblazers” portrait series to honor members of the Vanderbilt community who broke barriers at the university and in society at large. The other portraits feature Perry Wallace, the Rev. Walter R. Murray Jr., and the Rev. James Lawson.
Commissioned by Chancellor Zeppos, the portraits were painted by world-renowned artist Simmie Knox, who has painted portraits of Oprah Winfrey, Muhammad Ali, Justice Thurgood Marshall and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the official White House portraits of President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton.
The portraits are part of Vanderbilt’s campus-wide effort of “creating welcoming, inclusive and accessible spaces that recognize and celebrate the diversity of the Vanderbilt community.” The portraits are currently on display in the parlor of the Mary McClure Taylor Lobby in Kirkland Hall, Vanderbilt University’s administration building. They will remain in Kirkland Hall until they are dedicated in their permanent locations across campus next year.
Bishop Joseph A. Johnson, Jr. was the first African American to graduate from Vanderbilt University, (Bachelor of Divinity, 1954), the first to receive a PhD (1958), and the first to serve as a full member of the Vanderbilt Board of Trust. The Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center honors his legacy on the Vanderbilt campus. He was also the 34th Bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, noted scholar and theologian, and the author of The Soul of the Black Preacher and Proclamation Theology. The Bishop Joseph Johnson History Project is telling his life story through a biography and documentary film currently in progress.
Also featured, Perry Wallace enrolled at Vanderbilt in 1966, was an engineering student and the first African American varsity basketball player in the Southeastern Conference. Rev. Walter R. Murray Jr. was founder of the Association of Vanderbilt Black Alumni and was a was a founder of the Afro-American Student Association. He was elected a young alumni trustee in 1970, becoming the first African American to serve on the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust. Rev. James Lawson’s civil rights activism in Nashville led to his expulsion from Vanderbilt in 1960. Eventually, Lawson and Vanderbilt reconciled and, in 1996, he received the Divinity School’s first Distinguished Alumni/ae Award. Lawson returned to Vanderbilt to teach as a Distinguished University Professor in 2006.
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The Bishop Joseph Johnson History Project is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization dedicated to preserving the legacy of Bishop Joseph A. Johnson, Jr. and meeting the continuing demand for his books, sermons, and papers that persists 40 years after his death. Biography and documentary film in progress.
