Display honors Johnson, a woman before her time

Originally published in the Daily Advocate Feb. 7, 2020

By Bethany J. Royer-DeLong

GREENVILLE — In a small case, not far from the gift shop at the Garst Museum, is a
temporary display for a prominent local individual many may not have heard of — Kathryn
Magnolia Johnson.

As February marks Black History Month, the museum highlights a prominent black, local
individual, each year, and this year is particularly unique considering how few know of Johnson,
a woman well ahead of her time.

Where does one begin on a life that includes political activism, publication, and teaching?
Perhaps an emphasis on her Darke County roots starting with her birth in 1878.

Karen Besecker, a research specialist at the Garst Museum, who has dug deep into Johnson’s
extraordinary history, shared that Kathryn was born to Lucinda and Walter Johnson, transplants
from Indiana and Kentucky respectively.

Johnson, along with her seven siblings, was born near the black settlement of Longtown. Her
father died a year after she was born, and with women having little to no rights at the time, her
mother was forced to sell the family homestead. The large family then moved to New Paris in
Preble County, where Johnson attended high school, and her mother remarried.

In New Paris, Johnson stood out amongst her fellow peers both as a black student and superb
academic. She graduated top of her class, but the honor was bestowed upon a white classmate.
However, not about to be dissuaded and encouraged by her stepfather, Johnson went on to attend
college at Wilberforce University. She earned both a bachelor’s degree and a teaching certificate
and taught in schools in North Carolina, Arkansas, and Kansas.

For a time, she taught in Darke County schools, but given the treatment of black individuals and
lack of opportunities, Johnson found a calling in civil rights work. She was one of the first
volunteers, followed by one of the first hires with the NAACP (National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People). She traveled across the country, alone, says Besecker, to
speak about and enroll others in the NAACP as well as to sell subscriptions to the organization’s
newspaper, The Crisis.

The fact Johnson traveled alone as a woman and a woman of color, emphasizes her courage and
conviction to empowerment and equality.

Eventually, Johnson’s work brought her to the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association),
where she and a co-worker, Addie Waites Hunton, were sent to France to report on the treatment
of black U.S. Army soldiers during World War I. Their work culminated in a book upon their
return to the states, Two Colored Women with the American Expeditionary Forces.
Now an author, Johnson continued her work in civil rights by selling books written by prominent
black authors. She never married, but would occasionally return to Darke County to visit family
and friends. Eventually, she settled in Chicago until her death in Nov. 1954.

It was about three years ago when Besecker stumbled upon Johnson’s history after noting her
older brother’s prominent standing, Joseph Lowery Johnson.

Joseph graduated from Greenville High School then attended Ohio Northern University,
followed by Howard University Medical School for a degree in medicine in 1902. His history is
extensive, from serving as a trustee of Wilberforce University to his appointment as the Minister
to Liberia by President Woodrow Wilson in 1918.

Kathryn Johnson’s life was captured in a book by her great-grandnephew, Dr. Armand A
Gonzalzles Sr., in 2018. He utilized original accounts of her life via diaries, letters, and news
pieces. The book includes a family tree that shows lineage to General Nathanael Greene, the
namesake of Greenville.

Besecker hopes the book, Kathryn Magnolia Johnson: Fearless warrior and revolutionary in
pursuit of education, academic achievement, and social justice for Blacks throughout the nation
and the world, will be made available in the Garst Museum gift shop, dependent on its
availability.

“I have great admiration for her accomplishments and her bravery, for a woman of her time, let
alone a woman of color,” said Besecker when asked to summarize her thoughts on this rather
unknown but prominent local individual. “To have accomplished so much in her lifetime, to me,
it would have seemed impossible.”