A 1,200-mile car ride marks beginning of a family legacy
Nine decades after the Johnson clan came north, story of Great Migration inspires descendants
Seven children, dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren — who are today entrepreneurs, lawyers and political speechwriters — a community of over 100 other families, and a new and expansive congregation.
This was the future and legacy waiting for John Johnson at the end of a 1,200-mile-plus road trip from his hometown of Shubuta, Miss., to Albany in 1931.
Like many other Black people, Johnson — 21 at the time — sought to escape the twin maladies of the Depression and white supremacy in the South, fleeing north in the first wave of the Great Migration along with 1.6 million other Black people.
Albany was one of the northern destinations, and it wasn’t until the Great Migration — particularly the second wave beginning in the late 1940s and ‘50s — that the city began growing a sizable Black population, which roughly doubled every decade. Today, Albany’s Black population is about 27,900, a nearly seven-fold increase since 1950.
The Johnsons are one of the families that established themselves in a new home upstate, enriching the fabric of Albany’s communities.
Creating a legacy
With one person sitting in his lap and another 15 crammed beside him in a stretch Cadillac, John Johnson— then a young pastor — made the first of what would be many treks from Shubuta to Albany with only two shirts, two pairs of pants and one jacket. He was brought up north by Louis Parson, a pastor and fellow Shubuta native who in May 1930 had bought 14 acres of land in what is known today as the Rapp Road Historic District. Parson’s goal was to bring up more Black people from Shubuta, where they toiled as sharecroppers with little chance of ever erasing their debts. It was barely a step above slavery, and lynchings were still commonplace.
John Johnson “determined never to marry there and raise his children in that setting,” said Mckinley Johnson, one of his seven children.
A few years later, John followed Parson’s footsteps and began bringing up families himself from eastern Mississippi.
Three or four times a year, John would arrive in his former town past midnight, pull up to a home, flash his headlights, honk his horn four times and wait five minutes before moving on to the next home. John had made quite a reputation for himself, and always had to move quickly so as not to get caught by the Clarke County sheriff. Over the years, John brought well over 100 families to Albany in his station wagon, provided them with housing and connected them to job opportunities. He became known as the “Black Moses” — a modern Harriet Tubman in the community.
John himself climbed up the ladder in Albany, starting out cleaning houses and streets before saving up enough money to buy a parcel of land in the Rapp Road community, then selling it to buy a home on Bleecker Street in the South End. He became a carpenter’s helper, then started renovating and repairing homes. Eventually, he bought and renovated nearly 20 homes in the South End, which he rented to Black families, sometimes housing them for free.
“He said that he would never work all his life for the white man,” said Sam Johnson, another son. “He said, ‘I can do better. I can
My father, what he told me was that up in the North, the discrimination, they didn't come right out and tell you that ‘We don't want you here, we don't want you there.’ They would hide it and do different things things that turned out to be discrimination.” — Sam Johnson
work and build something and share whatever I have with other people so that they can live a better life.’”
Still, John Johnson never escaped the grip of racism as he had hoped when leaving the South.
“My father, what he told me was that up in the North, the discrimination, they didn't come right out and tell you that ‘We don't want you here, we don't want you there,’” said Sam. “They would hide it and do different things that turned out to be discrimination.”
It was for this reason, his sons said, that John never tried buying homes in Albany’s suburbs — he knew he wasn’t wanted there.
Perhaps John’s proudest legacy, however, was founding St. John's Church of God in Christ in 1952 — establishing a legacy of faith and conviction that has been carried on with passion by ensuing generations.
'God's will is his bill'
Mckinley Johnson was his father’s assistant in more ways than one.
He helped work on the homes his father used to buy in the South End. He assisted his father when he created a South End-based day care that predominantly served Black families. And for 45 years, he served as assistant pastor at St. John’s before taking over in
2000 — four years before his father died of a heart attack.
And like his father, Mckinley has become a giant in his community, combating many aspects of systemic racism — particularly civic and criminal justice, education and Black health.
Mckinley, who describes himself as “1937 years old,” vividly recalls one of many
times he was offered $5 or some groceries by the Albany Democratic political machine in exchange for his vote — a common practice that the machine would deploy in heavily Black neighborhoods for decades.
“I was a Christian, but for a moment I almost lost it, because of the principle that you can’t buy my vote, because that meant you were taking over a part of me,” Mckinley said.
Mckinley was also a key figure in organizing a walkout
from Philip Schuyler High School, which was predominantly Black, when he and other parents realized students of color were being steered toward vocational courses while white students were being steered toward college preparatory courses — a practice that hadn’t changed from his time as a student at the school.
“Their meetings were in our house at the kitchen table during lunchtime to strategize,” recalled his son Mckinley Johnson Jr., a.k.a. Bernie.
In search of a better education for his six children, Mckinley ended up moving his family to Voorheesville in the ’70s — where they continued to experience racism as one of few Black families in the school district at the time.
His own accomplishments spread far and wide like his father’s: Mckinley had a position building out Black participation with the Boy Scouts of America; established an annual youth conference aimed at setting young people in a positive direction; worked on voter registration for the NAACP; and is currently the president of the group Albany Africanamerican Clergy United for Empowerment.
Throughout his lifetime, though, Mckinley leaned on faith and his church community to support him and give him perspective during trying times, and made sure to raise his children the same way, as his father raised him.
“If God gives you something, he’ll give you the strength to carry,” Mckinley said. “My son gave me a little saying: ‘God’s will is his bill.’”
'We carry on'
Each generation of Johnson siblings talks on the phone with each other every day — no parents allowed.
During a Zoom call, Mckinley’s six children laugh and banter with each other as they share their life stories and reflect on the experiences of their parents and grandparents.
Once again, their grandfather’s legacy permeates yet another generation: Two are ordained ministers and three are licensed evangelists.
“My mother’s the one that taught us how to pray. My mother that taught us how to read the Bible. My mother that taught us how to do Sunday school and go to class and she was our cheerleader and coach,” said Marc Johnson, who is today administrative pastor of St. John’s. “My dad was always working three jobs — he was always there, but he was working.”
Yet Mckinley’s children also caught the workaholic bug, too, with a number of them involved in multiple entrepreneurial endeavors — some of which mirror those of their grandfather, such as opening a day care center. Their own children are actors, lawyers, work in the state Legislature and more.
Through it all, they said, they feel their grandfather’s presence.
“I feel like we all have a piece of him that we carry on,” said Teria Cooper, the youngest of the six. “We are all trying to carry on his legacy in one form or another.”