George Johnson's first breakthrough came in the 1950s, when he started selling hair products to Black men who wanted the sleek, straight hairstyles made famous by entertainers like Nat King Cole. His leap into products for women propelled Johnson Products to another level, fueling explosive growth and the construction of a sprawling Chicago headquarters.
In his memoir, Johnson wrote that when Martin Luther King Jr. visited the office and saw Black people working in jobs they'd so often been turned away from -- in engineering, research, sales, the front office -- he announced: "Now this is Black power!"
Johnson, who died Monday at the age of 99, built Johnson Products into the dominant provider of hair-care products for Black customers in the U.S. and the first Black-owned company to be listed on the American Stock Exchange.
The company's success made him rich, with homes in, among other places, France and Jamaica, and a lineup of famous friends like Lionel Hampton and Ray Charles, who came over for barbecues.
In November of 1999, when The Wall Street Journal looked at 10 people who transformed entrepreneurship over the past century, it included Johnson on the list alongside the likes of Bill Gates, Sam Walton, Jeff Bezos and Henry Ford not because of the size of his company or his personal largess, but "because Johnson Products became a nurturer and incubator for scores of future black entrepreneurs and Mr. Johnson a shining symbol of black entrepreneurial success. The story of how business ownership in the 20th century spread beyond the domain of white males must include the story of Mr. Johnson."
The birth of an entrepreneur
George Ellis Johnson was born in Richton, Miss., on June 16, 1927, to David and Priscilla Johnson. The middle son of three boys, he was 2 years old and his mother was still a teenager when she and her boys moved to Chicago to live with her mother.
George Johnson's son Eric said his father was given a roof over his head, but for anything else he wanted, he had to earn it. George had a job from the time he was 6, delivering newspapers, shining shoes and working in restaurants.
"In short, he became economically independent at a very young age," Eric Johnson said. "To me, that's kind of the genesis of what would ultimately lead him to become an entrepreneur."
George and his older brother, John, had something of a pact: When one of them got a job, they'd bring the other along with them. That's how George found his way to the hair-care business. He dropped out of high school to follow John to a job at a cosmetics company, Fuller Products.
Johnson and his wife, Joan, went into business with a local barber in 1954 to manufacture and sell a product they developed called Ultra Wave, which made it easier for men to straighten their hair and style it.
The partnership with the barber was short-lived, however, and when Johnson went to a bank to try to borrow $250 to start a company, he was turned down. When he went to another branch of the same bank and asked to borrow $250 to take his wife on vacation, he was approved.
Johnson saw himself and his business as part of an ecosystem of Black entrepreneurs that was mutually supportive. Eric Johnson said this ethos had its roots in his childhood in the segregated city of Chicago, where George grew up and where Black-owned businesses worked with one another; one company's success fed the others.
He hired and trained Black men and women around the country how to sell his products. He worked with Black-owned ad agencies and law firms. He co-founded the Black-owned Independence Bank of Chicago, to give other Black entrepreneurs a shot at capital. When John W. Rogers Jr., the stepson of Johnson's early lawyer, created Ariel Investments, the first Black-owned mutual-fund company in the U.S., Johnson became an early client. His money, and endorsement, helped Rogers build his firm.
"He just loved our community, but he also realized that if we built a stronger Black community, we would all grow together," Rogers said, adding: "He understood that if you helped others achieve their dreams, again, we would all grow together, we would all rise together."
For instance, before a group of entrepreneurs launched Essence, a magazine targeted at Black women that began publishing in 1970, Johnson said in his memoir that he committed to years of advertising paid in advance. He also included subscription cards in his product packaging. Johnson used advertisements in print and television to show Black Americans in roles they weren't typically seen in the media: politicians, physicians, flight attendants and professors.
When a Chicago-based television show targeted at Black teenagers that featured Black musicians wanted to go national in the early 1970s, he agreed to sponsor the show, prominently promoting Afro Sheen, developed as Black customers gravitated toward more-natural hair styles. The money enabled "Soul Train" to relocate to Hollywood and syndicate nationally. The show became a pop-culture phenomenon that elevated Black artists and celebrated African-American culture. It was also great for Johnson Products: Sales of Afro Sheen soared.
Johnson's survivors include his four children and his third wife, Madeline Murphy Rabb, whom he married in 2022. His first wife, Joan Johnson, died in 2019.
Divorce and remarried
George and Joan Johnson married twice. After meeting in high school, they wed for the first time in the 1950s. She was integral to the success of the Johnson Products. Eric Johnson said that in the early days, while his father was on the road selling the product, Joan Johnson was in Chicago running the business: managing payroll, paying bills, collecting from barbers -- even if it meant going down to barbershops and collecting in person.
Their divorce in 1989 was acrimonious. In the settlement, Joan got control of the company. In his memoir, "Afro Sheen: How I Revolutionized an Industry with the Golden Rule, from 'Soul Train' to Wall Street," Johnson is upfront about the fact that his infidelity played a large role in the rupture in their marriage and that between his marriages to Joan he married a woman named Renee whom he'd had an affair with. His co-writer, Hilary Beard, said that he insisted in detailing his infidelity in the book as a cautionary tale to demonstrate what his behavior did to his family and his business.
When they were back together, but not remarried, Joan sold the company to Ivax in 1993 for $70 million. She didn't tell George first. The company has changed hands two times since.
The couple remarried in 1995. In his memoir, George wrote that though he was initially furious about the sale, he decided to get over his anger quickly.
"If I wanted to stay with her, I had to forgive Joan from my heart," he wrote, adding: "I knew I would never be able to sleep in the same bed with her if I held a grudge against her."
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 09, 2026 15:58 ET (19:58 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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