Vernon Johns

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vernon Johns (April 22, 1892 – June 11, 1965) was an American minister and civil rights leader who was active in the struggle for civil rights for African Americans from the 1920s.

He is considered the father of the American Civil Rights Movement, having laid the foundation on which Martin Luther King, Jr. and others would build. He was Dr. King's predecessor as pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama from 1947 to 1952, and a mentor of Ralph Abernathy, Wyatt Walker, and many others in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Johns was born in Darlington Heights, Prince Edward County, Virginia. He died of a heart attack in Washington, D.C. at age 73. David Anderson Elementary School in Petersburg, VA was renamed 'Vernon Johns Middle School' several years ago. In 2009 it will become the junior high school for the city school system.

Contents 1 Movie 2 References 3 See also 4 External links

[edit] Movie

A television film was made in 1994 called Road to Freedom: The Vernon Johns Story, written by Leslie Lee and Kevin Arkadie, based on an unpublished biography by Henry W. Powell of The Vernon Johns Society. The motion picture was directed by Kenneth Fink and stars James Earl Jones in the title role. Former NBA superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, an African-American history historian, was the film's co-executive producer.

[edit] References

• Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988. ISBN 0671687425

[edit] See also

• Ralph Luker, editor of the Vernon Johns Papers

[edit] External links

• Vernon Johns biography at The Vernon Johns Society
• Dexter Avenue Baptist Church History: Rev. Vernon Johns 1947-1952 The Church's Nineteenth Pastor
• Bio @ Oberlin College
• The Vernon Johns Story at the Internet Movie Database
• Documenting Vernon Johns
• Vernon Johns at Find-A-Grave
• Johns the Baptist