THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 16, 1994 TAG: 9410130452
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GEORGE TUCKER
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
DR. HARVEY NATHANIEL Johnson (1892-1973) - designer and builder of Norfolk's Attucks Theatre and other area structures, dedicated Christian minister, and lifelong promoter of human rights - is still remembered as a great humanitarian 21 years after his death.
``My father never slapped anyone around,'' his son, Harvey N. Johnson Jr., said recently. ``He also stressed the point that everybody is somebody - no big shots or ordinary people.
``We all have talents of a sort, some spectacular, some small. My father insisted that we use whatever we are endowed with to the best advantage, not only for ourselves, but for others as well.''
The elder Johnson's self-reliance, which gained him fame as Virginia's most outstanding black architect and later as an influential minister, was a part of his proud heritage.
One of his grandfathers, Samuel Johnson, was a slave who came from Carolina County but spent his last years in King William County. Half Indian, half black, he became a builder and bought his freedom.
Johnson's father, Ruffin Ford Johnson of Richmond, also a builder, was another inspiration. Under his father's guidance, Harvey Johnson learned the building trade. And he took advantage of what schooling was then available to blacks in Richmond's public schools and at Virginia Union University.
Ambitious to further improve himself, Johnson later enrolled at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, where he mastered the skills he subsequently used as an independent designer and builder. When World War I broke out, he went to Washington in an attempt to obtain government employment as a draftsman but was rebuffed because of his race. Fortunately, a kindly official sympathized with Johnson and he eventually was hired as a carpenter in the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth.
A year later, according to his son, he took a ``big leap'' and opened his own architectural office on Church Street in Norfolk. In 1919, he designed and built his most celebrated structure, the Attucks Theatre. It is now a Historic Virginia Landmark and is being considered for restoration as an African-American cultural center. He designed other buildings, including the old Union Commercial Bank in Norfolk and the Phoenix Bank in Nansemond.
Then, the elder Johnson, a deeply religious man from childhood, began to have a ``nagging urge that told him his architectural career was not giving him an opportunity to realize his full potential as a person,'' his son recalled.
Johnson became the minister of Mount Olive Baptist Church in Norfolk in 1924. Seven years later, he took over as pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Portsmouth, where he remained for the next 42 years.
Interestingly, when the Ebenezer congregation, then in financial difficulties, was considering calling him, one member familiar with Johnson's secular qualifications remarked, ``That is the one we want, an architect.'' The church prospered under Johnson and he transformed its sanctuary from a nondescript brick structure into an imposing granite-towered edifice that is now a Portsmouth landmark.
In the meantime, according to Johnson's son, his father - taking Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington as his role models - used his influence to improve the living conditions of the less fortunate among his people and to help further amicable race relations in the area.
As the years passed, Johnson looked back and blessed his decision to become a shepherd of souls rather than an erector of perishable structures. One of his proudest achievements was being one of the founding fathers of what became Norfolk State University, which his son was associated with for many years.
When he died in 1973, Johnson was mourned throughout the Norfolk-Portsmouth community, which he had served in an architectural, religious, educational and civic capacity for the greater part of his life.
``He had fought the good fight,'' his son said proudly. ``What a wonderful thing it was to have had him as my father.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Harvey N. Johnson at age 80, one year before his death in 1973.
by CNB