Johnson, Guy Benton, 1901-1991

Sociologist.

Educator; sociologist.

Guy Benton Johnson was one of the original research assistants at the Institute for Research in Social Science and joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina in 1927, retiring in 1969. In 1923, he married Guion Griffis, also a social science researcher. They had two sons: Guy Benton Jr. (Benny) (b. 1928) and Edward (b. 1933).

Guy Benton Johnson was one of the original research assistants at the University of North Carolina's Institute for Research in Social Science, and joined the University's faculty in 1927. He became Kenan professor of anthropology and sociology in 1963 and retired six years later.

A native of Caddo Mills, Tex., Johnson earned a bachelor's degree from Baylor University in 1921, a master's degree from the University of Chicago in 1922, and a doctoral degree from the University of North Carolina in 1927.

He began studying African American culture, including folk music and dialect, in the 1920s. During that decade, he focused on Saint Helena Island, S.C., near Beaufort, where he became familiar with the music, folklore, and Gullah language of the inhabitants. His publications included The Negro and His Songs (with Howard Odum, 1925); Negro Workaday Songs (with Odum, 1926), John Henry, A Negro Legend (1929); and The Folk Culture of Saint Helena Island (1930).

During the 1930s and early 1940s Johnson conducted more purely sociological studies of the effects of the Depression on African Americans and the social structure of the Lumbee Indians of Robeson County, N.C. In 1939-1940, he, along with his wife Guion, participated in the well known Myrdal study of African American life, administered by Gunnar Myrdal, a Swedish sociologist. Their work for this study included investigations of crime in African American communities, African American churches, and racial ideologies among whites.

From 1944 to 1947, Johnson was executive director of the Southern Regional Council. He later, in the 1950s, directed studies in African-American education for the Fund for the Advancement of Education. He also travelled extensively in Africa in the 1960s and early 1970s and studied race relations on the continent. Johnson was a fellow of the Social Science Research Council, the American Anthropological Association, and the American Sociological Association.

For 37 years, Johnson served as a trustee of Howard University.

Johnson was married to Guion Griffis Johnson, who was also active in social science research. They had two sons: Guy Benton Johnson, Jr., and Edward J. Johnson, psychology professor at the University of North Carolina.