Born in Bristol, Virginia, Charles Johnson was a distinguished sociologist and author. He studied at Wayland Academy from 1909 to 1913 and went on to earn degrees from Virginia Union University in 1917 and the University of Chicago in 1918. He served a year in France during World War I as a sergeant-major. After the 1919 race riot in Chicago, he was named Associate Executive Director of the Chicago Commission on Race Relations and in 1922 wrote the bulk of the report “The Negro in Chicago.” From 1923 to 1928 Johnson edited the National Urban League's Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, which presented the work of many figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson served as chairman of the social science department at Fisk University from 1928 to 1946, when he became Fisk's first African-American president.  

Sources:
Robbins, Richard. “Johnson, Charles Spurgeon.” American National Biography Online. February 2000.http://www.anb.org/articles/14/14-00323.html. 28 March, 2005.

Who’s Who in Colored America . Ed. Thomas Yenser. 5 th ed. Thomas Yenser: New York, 1940. pg. 287.

Valien, Preston and Bonita H. Valien. Dictionary of American Negro Biography. 1 st ed. New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 1982. pgs. 347-349.