Vernon Johns

Who was Vernon Johns?

Vernon Johns was an American minister and civil rights leader who was active in the struggle for civil rights for African Americans from the 1920s. At times he has been rated as one of the three greatest African-American preachers, along with Mordecai Johnson and Howard Thurman.

He is considered by some as 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.

Dr. Vernon Johns was born in Darlington Heights,Virginia.Three of his grandparents were slaves. His paternal grandfather had been hanged for killing his master.Johns maternal grandfather was a Mr. Prince.Prince had a long-standing relationship with Johns maternal grandmother and served prison time for killing a man who tried to rape her. After her mother died, Johns' mother Sallie Prince was raised by the white wife of her father.

In 1915, Johns graduated from Virginia, He then attended The University of Chicago's Graduate School of Theology.