#OTD – April 12, 1984 – Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center Dedicated at Vanderbilt University

On this date 34 years ago, on April 12, 1984, the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center was dedicated at Vanderbilt University to honor Bishop Joseph Andrew Johnson, Jr. the first African American to graduate from the university. Bishop Johnson was also my grandfather, and I remember the day well as family members gathered in large numbers at the Sarratt Student Center a mere five years after my grandfather’s untimely death. In attendance were his widow, Grandmother Grace; his children Joseph III, Charles DeWitt (my father), and Patricia Ann; along with numerous great aunts and uncles, cousins, university dignitaries, church leaders, and many family friends.

Up until that day, I knew him only as “Granddaddy,” but at the age of nine, I was old enough to read the biographical sketch and listen to the program speakers. It was then that I learned about my grandfather’s quadfecta of firsts: that he was the first African-American to attend Vanderbilt University, the first to graduate, receiving the Bachelor of Divinity in 1954, the first to receive a PhD from the university in 1958, and the first African American elected to serve as a full member of the university’s Board of Trusts in 1971. I would later learn that when he enrolled at Vanderbilt, he also became the first African American to attend a private, white university in the south.

He was also the thirty-fourth bishop of the Christian Methodist Church, the first dean and president of Phillips School of Theology, and a New Testament professor at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta. He was a pioneer in the field of black theology and biblical interpretation, authoring five books, including The Soul of the Black Preacher and Proclamation Theology. As a bishop, he became a civil rights advocate and an international speaker at universities and conferences throughout the world.

At the dedication, the book program contained printed remarks from former Vanderbilt University Chancellors, Harvie Brandscomb and Alexander Heard, as well as William S. Vaughn, former president of the Board of Trusts. Heard described my grandfather as a man who was never self-conscious about being the first black member of the Board and never hesitant to speak on topics that interested him. Vaughn described him as a “skillful advocate on behalf of blacks” who spoke “out of the deep currents of his own racial experience.” The speakers all agreed that the dedication of the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center was a worthy tribute to his legacy. Brandscomb, who participated in the decision to admit my grandfather in 1953, noted that it was “especially fitting that it should be a center where young men and women are following in his footsteps.”

Today, thirty-four years after the dedication, the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center is a cultural hub on Vanderbilt’s campus, hosting speakers, guest lecturers, student organizations, and academic opportunities focused on African and African American culture. According to its website, the center is “a gathering place, a home away from home for students who study in the BCC, gather there for meetings, and learn about African and African American culture through the center’s programs.” The center’s mission includes cultural and educational programming, student support and development, and community outreach and service. Its roster of renowned speakers includes Angela Davis, Julian Bond, the late Negro Leagues Legend, Buck O’Neil, Afeni Shakur (mother of the late Tupac Shakur); and Dr. Eugene Richardson of the Tuskegee Airmen. In the almost forty years since his death, Bishop Johnson’s legacy continues to live in the generations of Vanderbilt students who attend meetings, cultural events, panel discussions, and seminars at the Black Cultural Center. They do so knowing that the barrier was broken and the door was opened by Johnson’s courageous decision to apply, attend, and persevere at Vanderbilt University.

But Bishop Johnson’s impact extends beyond one campus. In the Fall of 2015, when the #BlackonCampus movement sparked protests by African American students at university campuses across the country, many student activists invoked the names and stories of their universities’ first African American students. In doing so, they demonstrated that the campus protests were not new, but were grounded in a decades-long struggle for diversity and equality in higher education. The life story of Bishop Johnson takes place at the heart of this historical struggle and represents generations of freedom fighters who struggled for the right to read, to study, to learn, and eventually to be admitted to the nation’s best institutions. Thus, Bishop Johnson’s life story provides historical context and inspiration for today’s generations of students, advocates, people of faith, and others still engaged in the struggle for justice, equality, and inclusion today.

Rev. Cynthia Johnson-Oliver is writing a biography and filming a documentary about Bishop Joseph A. Johnson, Jr. For more information, visit www.bishopjosephjohnson.org.

Follow on social media: @BishopJJHistory and @CJohnsonOliver.

Rev. Cynthia Johnson-Oliver interviewing Vanderbilt Associate Dean Frank Dobson for documentary film at Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center

Bishop Joseph Johnson Posthumously Receives Distinguished Alumni Award, Vanderbilt Divinity

 

 

Cynthia accepting awardBishop Joseph A. Johnson, Jr. was posthumously conferred the “Distinguished Alumnus” award at Vanderbilt Divinity School on October 3, 2014. Bishop Johnson was the first African American to graduate from Vanderbilt University (BD’54), the first to receive a PhD (1958) and the first to serve as a full member on the Board of Trusts. [Click here for full bio.]

The Distinguished Alumni award award is “given to someone who has demonstrated excellence and distinction in justice making through their work in congregational ministry, religious institutions, ecumenical organizations, community –based organizations, government, or other social institutions.”

The award was presented by Dr. Emilie Townes, Dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School, and Dr. Frank Dobson, Director of the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center at Vanderbilt University. The award was accepted on behalf of Bishop Johnson by Rev. Cynthia Johnson-Oliver, granddaughter of Bishop Johnson and president of the Bishop Joseph Johnson History Project.

In presenting the award, Dr. Dobson quoted from Bishop Johnson’s book, The Soul of the Black Preacher:

“Soul is the strength to survive in a hostile environment, to break through the legal and social conventions which tend to dehumanize and degrade. Soul is the ability to use creatively the destructive powers of a racist American society for the development of a tough faith and undying hope.”  – Bishop Joseph A. Johnson, Jr.

Dr. Dobson concluded, “Bishop Joseph Johnson broke through those legal and social conventions, and in doing so, he changed Vanderbilt forever. It is thus very fitting on the 100th anniversary of his birth and the 60th anniversary of his first graduation from Vanderbilt that this honor is being bestowed upon him.”

Rev. Cynthia Johnson-Oliver accepted the award on behalf of her grandfather:

Rev. Cynthia Johnson-Oliver delivers acceptance speech

Rev. Cynthia Johnson-Oliver delivers acceptance speech

I want to thank the faculty of Vanderbilt Divinity School and Dean Emilie Townes for honoring my grandfather. I also want to thank Dr. Frank Dobson for his presentation of this award.

It is an honor for me to accept this award on behalf of my grandfather and on behalf of all of my family, some of whom are present this evening. I also accept this award on behalf of Capers Memorial CME Church, whose members are also present and where Bishop Johnson pastored while at Vanderbilt, and the entire CME Church.

In the introduction to Bishop Johnson’s book, The Soul of the Black Preacher, Bishop C.D. Coleman (who wrote the introduction) describes the black preacher as “teacher, healer, carpenter, and undertaker by necessity. It was he who took down the mutilated bodies…after the mobs had done their worst. It was he who represented black people to a hostile white community in times of deep trouble.” These words possessed deep meaning for Bishop Johnson, who, early in his ministry, did actually perform the funeral of a man who had been lynched.

Today, however, those who carry Bishop Johnson’s legacy are not limited to black preachers. They include those who minister to the families of Trevon Martin and Michael Brown and other African Americans families denied racial justice. But they also include those who minister at the US-Mexican border to children fleeing in a mass exodus to a better life. They include people of faith who interdict human traffickers, freeing people from modern-day slavery. They include those who minister to families experiencing the trauma of domestic violence.

Today, my grandfather’s legacy is carried by the soul of the justice-seeking preacher who is committed, as Bishop Johnson was, to improving our world with the intellectual, interpretive power to proclaim the gospel in liberating ways, combined with courageous pastoral care to those at the margins of society, along with faithful action for social and economic justice on behalf of the least, the last, and the lost.

It is this vision of mind and soul, of intellect and faith in the service of justice that compelled Bishop Johnson to attend Vanderbilt, and it is a vision that he carried throughout his life, his ministry, and his theology. I thank Vanderbilt Divinity School for honoring Bishop Johnson and his legacy. I thank Bishop Johnson for his life vision, and for all of us who carry his legacy, our soul-filled struggle for a more just world continues.   – Rev. Cynthia Johnson-Oliver