Heralded as the “Auto Dealer Advocate” by Black Enterprise, Al Johnson broke barriers in the automobile industry, and readily paved a way for others to follow. As an entrepreneur and philanthropist, Johnson became the first African-American to be awarded a General Motors franchise and later became a leading independent Cadillac dealer.
To do so, he capitalized on the attempted limitations of a racialized society in becoming one of the top salesmen and dealers in the region. Additionally, his philanthropic efforts helped support Chicago’s most impoverished and even get President Obama elected into office.
Born February 23, 1929, in St. Louis as the son of a physician, he earned a bachelor of science in business administration from Lincoln University and a master of science in hospital administration from the University of Chicago. However, while working as an assistant administrator of Home G. Phillips Hospital, he began selling automobiles part-time to supplement his income.
Though hired by Nolting Oldsmobile in Kirkwood, Missouri, Johnson was not allowed to sell from the dealership due to racial discrimination. Alternatively, he had to sell door-to-door, becoming known as the “briefcase salesman” that sold cars without having an actual, physical car to show.
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While at Nolting, however, Johnson discovered an innovative way to increase his profits despite inherent racial discrimination. He secured a meeting with the dealership’s owner and propositioned a new way to sell cars: the same way that dealers ordered them. Rather than the dealer making custom orders, the customer would be able to choose custom features – fabric color, trim, etc.
“The car would be built to the purchaser’s specifications.” Though Johnson’s potential sales were initially limited since restricted from the showroom floor, his briefcase model paid off: Johnson’s salary reached $60,000 in his first year (about $300,000 in today’s dollars). As a hospital administrator, he could only make up to $12,000/year even at the height of the profession.
Johnson would later move on to Brock Oldsmobile and continue to petition General Motors for the opportunity to franchise. After over 15 years and with demonstrated success as a “briefcase salesman,” the Chicago Oldsmobile Regional Sales Office finally granted the franchise on August 1, 1967: making Johnson the first African American to be awarded a new car franchise by General Motors (GM).
Johnson’s keen sales and business management skills successfully revitalized the failing franchise, leading to a subsequent offer to become a Cadillac dealer: officially franchising on June 1, 1971.
He’d eventually relocate the Cadillac dealership to a new, state-of-the-art facility of which he built and remained until selling the business in 1994. In the process, he’d also gain independent status from the Motor Holding Division of General Motors, as well as acquire a Lincoln/Mercury agency and other business enterprises including Stellar, Inc. and the Pyramid Trotting Association.
But Johnson was never only in the business for himself. His pioneering work, advocacy, and willingness to help those coming after him helped establish the first Minority Dealer Organization and Training Academy to increase the number and success of African American dealers. He was actively involved in the Political Action Conference of Illinois, a group supporting Black candidates for the Chicago mayoral seat.
In addition, after the election of Harold Washington as Chicago’s first Black mayor, Johnson served as a business development consultant for an annual salary of $1. In later years, he’d become the first large donor to Barack Obama’s campaign for the U.S. Senate, pledging $50,000 towards the historic occasion.
Johnson has received numerous awards in recognition of business achievements, philanthropic efforts, and civic impact. He was chairman emeritus of the University of Illinois Center for Urban Business, College for Business Administration; a board member of LaRabida Children’s Hospital, a member of the Executives Club of Chicago, and the General Motors Black Dealers Advisory Board. Johnson passed away in 2010 at the age of 89, but his legacy continues to live on.
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When thinking about famous Black inventors, Otis Boykin might not immediately come to mind, however, a piece of him may literally be in your heart. This brilliant Black man is responsible for revolutionizing the pacemaker and keeping our hearts beating longer.
Boykin held 26 patents for various inventions and became most well-known for his work with resistors. For those of us who are not scientists, a resistor essentially controls the amount of electricity that flows through an object. Boykin’s breakthrough device “could withstand extreme temperatures and tolerate and withstand various levels of pressure and physical trauma without impairing its effectiveness,” making it ideal for the human heart.
In the science community, Boykin worked as a lab assistant, then research supervisor, up until launching his own company, Boykin-Fruth, Inc. Boykin’s resistors were cheaper and more effective than his competitors, which led to his products being highly sought after for the U.S. military’s guided missiles, IBM’s computers, and by radio/TV companies.
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Born in 1920 in Dallas, Boykin traversed tremendous obstacles on his way to success. At the age of one, his mother died of heart failure which forever affected him and served as his primary motivation for developing his groundbreaking technology for the pacemaker. In spite of this early loss, Boykin excelled in school and eventually became a proud graduate of Fisk University. Soon after enrolling in graduate school in Chicago, Boykin dropped out and decided to fully pursue his dream of becoming an inventor.
At the time, Boykin had no idea heart disease would become such a prevalent killer or that his inventions would have such a profound impact on the Black community. With the highest rates of heart failure due to high blood pressure, obesity, and high cholesterol, Boykin’s pacemaker may be needed now more than ever before as hundreds of thousands of people benefit from the medical device each year.
Ironically, Boykin himself died of heart failure. Ultimately, even his own life’s work could not save him. In spite of his untimely death, his work left an indelible mark on the science and medical communities. His innovation places him among the ranks of George Washington Carver, Benjamin Banneker, Garrett Morgan, and many other notable Black inventors.
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While the wedding of John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline “Jackie O” Lee Bouvier was one of the most highly anticipated social events of the season, everyone’s eyes were glued to one thing: Jackie O’s wedding dress. And until now, the dress designer’s identity was kept a secret.
Many wealthy families and others in high society referred to Ann Lowe, one of the first Black high fashion designers, as their “best kept secret”. Not only did she design Jackie O’s wedding gown, she also designed actress Olivia de Havilland’s Oscar gown.
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Lowe was born in Alabama in 1898. Her grandmother was an enslaved dressmaker who opened a business after the Civil War. Her grandmother and her mother worked as dressmakers in her grandmother’s business. Lowe’s mother died when she was 16, forcing her to take over the family business.
Soon after, she married an older man and had one child named Arthur. The marriage didn’t last long. The wife of a Tampa business tycoon invited her to create dresses for her and her daughters. Lowe jumped at the opportunity against her husband’s wishes. She said that it was her chance to make the pretty gowns that she wanted to make. She left against her husband wishes and soon after they divorced.
Though she was happy making dresses, she wanted to do more. She took a sabbatical and enrolled in S. T. Taylor Design School in New York City. Shocked they enrolled a Black student, the headmaster tried to discourage her from attending the school. She had to take her classes in a room alone. Despite the racism, she endured and graduated.
Ten years later, she moved permanently to New York City and took jobs as an in-house seamstress at Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Henri Bendel and other high-end stores. She opened a business in New York and designed for socialites, famous families and Hollywood stars. Her clients often went to her because they could get a high-fashion dress at a much cheaper rate.
Though she was popular among the social elite and generated lots of business, she didn’t have the best business acumen. She nearly went bankrupt.
When she was commissioned to make Jackie O’s dress, she charged only $500 compared to the $1,500 most other designers would have charged. Ten days before the wedding, 10 of the 15 gowns Lowe made were destroyed when a pipe burst.
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She rushed to recreate the gowns, suffering a $2,200 loss. When delivering the dress, they demanded she enter through the service door. She refused, saying she wouldn’t deliver the dresses unless she went through the front.
Her son started managing her business affairs and things were looking up. However, after her son died, her businesses floundered, and she owed $12,800 in back taxes. To make matters worse, she was losing her eyesight. However, she continued working.
She retired at 71 and lived the rest of her life in Queens, New York.
Although unknown to the masses in her heyday, Lowe is now getting the recognition she deserves. Both the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology are displaying her gowns.
Find out more about Ann Lowe in the books Fancy Party Gowns and Something To Prove.
This article is part five of PushBlack’s seven-day Kwanzaa series. If you missed yesterday’s story, click here to check it out.
Happy Kwanzaa! Today is day 5, and we observe the principle Nia, or purpose.
According to Kwanzaa creator Maulana Karenga, Nia encourages us "to make our collective work the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness."
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Black people have made tremendous contributions to the world. Not only were we the first people on Earth, we were also the mothers and fathers of influential civilizations.
Take, for example, the Nile Valley Civilizations in ancient Africa. In the book "Stolen Legacy", written by historian George G.M. James, the author presents the historical evidence that Greek scholars (the most famous being Pythagoras and Plato) studied in Ancient Egypt for decades, then returned to Greece with the knowledge of math, science, philosophy, art, and spirituality used to propel their society into greatness.
Ancient Egypt was thriving centuries before the Greeks emerged. However, the ancient Greeks (and the Romans) are considered the civilizations that laid the foundation for Western Civilization. Due to racism, Black people’s role in shaping their development is ignored.
Nia teaches us that we should look to the past to discover our true potential, then use that in crafting our purpose for the future. Currently, Black people are oppressed all over the world.
However, our purpose is not to overcome oppression and achieve equality. Our collective purpose should be to overcome oppression to return to a point where we are the leaders of the world and the people who push civilization forward with our ideas and efforts.
For more about the Black origins of Western civilization, check out “Stolen Legacy” by George G.M. James.
Pitched as a “humanitarian” effort to prepare formerly enslaved Blacks for inclusion as free citizens in America, the Port Royal Experiment is a historical example of why Black people have difficulty trusting any form of government handouts and shows the fragility of public policy.
In 1862, the Union Army invaded the Sea Islands of South Carolina (now called Hilton Head). Then, all the plantation owners abandoned their land leaving behind nearly 10,000 enslaved Blacks.
This came as a complete surprise to the Union’s troops and they initially had no idea what to do with these people.
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While not legally free, they were considered contraband and became property of the government, working as field hands earning $1 for every 400 pounds of cotton harvested.
The formerly enslaved people lived amongst the Union troops for several months, but hostility and animosity between the two groups ultimately led to the creation of the Port Royal Experiment.
The U.S. government decided that the remaining Blacks on the island would be allowed to buy and run the abandoned plantations as well as develop schools and hospitals. Abraham Lincoln even enacted a policy that would split up to 40,000 acres of plantation land among families strictly of African descent.
Dozens of missionary teachers, doctors, and ministers volunteered to help with the experiment. With their help, the new land-owning Blacks founded Mitchelville which would become the first of many all-Black communities in the U.S.
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This occurred four years prior to the founding of the historic town Eatonville in Florida, which was the first incorporated all-Black town.
Everything was going great until Lincoln died and noted racist Andrew Johnson became President. Johnson vowed to restore all the land that had been given to Blacks back to its previous white owners.
Johnson did not believe that Blacks should be compensated for slavery with land ownership and instead shifted the focus to voting rights.
This history shows that what is given in one administration can easily be revoked by the next when politicians are not outrightly looking out for our community’s best interests.
Too often, public policies have swept the rug from under our feet and left us displaced. Our battle doesn't end once someone who seems to be on our side gets in office. 
In America, sickle cell disease is most prevalent in people with African ancestry and those who identify as Black. According to data, 1 in 13 African American babies carry the sickle cell trait and 1 in 365 African-American babies are born with the sickle cell disease.
Sickle cell disease developed historically as a way to combat malaria, but resulted in a mutation of blood cells that often leads to clogged veins and arteries. To prevent these blockages from leading to strokes, patients often need to receive monthly blood transfusions.
Blood types O and B are most prevalent in Black communities with an estimated 50% of Blacks having O blood type, which is the most needed by blood banks like the Red Cross.
However, the stark reality is that only 1% of the Black community donates blood each year.
This statistic is startling and ironic because blood banks were actually founded by a Black man. Born in 1904, Dr. Charles Drew is known for designing a system that provided immediate and safe transfusion of blood plasma that could be preserved and used in times of emergencies.
After gaining fame for his work, Dr. Drew was asked to direct the first American Red Cross Blood Bank in 1940 and has been called the “Father of Blood Banks.”
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At the time, the Red Cross banned the use of blood from Black donors in white recipients. Soon after Dr. Drew’s vehement attempts to get the ban lifted were denied, he resigned from the position.
3 years later, the NAACP honored Drew with the Spingarn Medal for “highest and noblest achievement by an African American.”
It is incomprehensible to imagine how many lives Dr. Drew’s work has saved. Without him we may not have the ability to literally gift part of ourselves to one another by donating blood and plasma.
As a community, we can honor Dr. Drew’s legacy by participating in local blood drives and encouraging our family and friends to do the same.
On Tuesday evening, Ramsey County, MN released dashcam footage of the police-led shooting death of our brother Philando Castile. This heartbreaking imagery adds an exclamation point to the end of this year-long sentence. A sentence that began on July 6, 2016 as Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, live-streamed the gut wrenching scene of officer Jeronimo Yanez killing Castile as she and her daughter sat defenseless and terrified in the car.
This image will haunt them forever.
Castile followed the officer’s orders. He pulled his car over. He was respectful. He informed the officer that he had a license to carry a firearm. He reached for his driver’s license as requested by the officer. After all of this, within only 74 seconds, Philando Castile was shot and killed by a police officer frightened by nothing more than the sight of Black skin. Respectability did not save our brother’s life.
Yanez lied to Castile about the reason for being pulled over. He claimed it was for a broken tail light. However, the dashcam footage reveals he thought Castile and his girlfriend fit the description of robbery suspects – primarily because of Castile’s “wide-set nose.” Castile, fed a lie by the officer, had no reason to see the interaction as anything other than a routine traffic stop. No reason to assume the officer was approaching him with aggression fueled by bias.
Raise your hand if you have a “wide-set nose.” Damn near any one of us could have ended up like Castile on that evening.
Castile was not involved in any robbery. In fact, he held a critical role in his community by working daily to add value to the lives of youth as a supervisor for the St. Paul Public Schools Nutrition Services Department.
He was loved by the people he served. And, he loved the people dearly. When asked by his friend and coworker John Thompson why he worked extra shifts in the summer, Castile simply responded, “I’m working this summer because I love the kids…man, I love everybody.” Those were the last words Thompson heard from Castile.
Officer Yanez has been on paid leave for the past year. He was likely able to spend quality time with his wife from the comfort of their suburban home and be present for his infant daughter’s first milestones.
Castile, on the other hand, was robbed of the chance to help his girlfriend raise her then-4-year-old daughter and to continue enhancing the lives of the school children he served.
As the verdict came in to clear Yanez of all charges, the police department announced they were firing the officer but are now negotiating a “separation agreement” to help him transition to a new career. Yes, NEGOTIATING. Yanez can request a package he deems appropriate.
This situation we are in is like a terrible movie playing on a non-stop loop. As Black bodies continue falling in the streets at the hands of the State, the officers involved are rarely held accountable for their actions. In a sense, they are actually rewarded.
Although the jury has made their decision, the battle is not yet over. Join us in signing the Color of Change petition to demand that Yanez does not receive severance pay. Demand that police officers are not allowed to profit from the theft of Black lives and the destruction of Black families. Click here to sign the petition.
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