{"id":223,"featured":0,"modified":"2026-09-28 20:32:42","latitude":35.77323841349487310026233899407088756561279296875,"longitude":-78.646201193332672119140625,"title":"Home of Edward Austin Johnson","subtitle":"","fullsize":"https://mail.raleighhistoric.org/files/fullsize/c343bda7be6baaa7cbb37847ff4f942a.jpg","address":"West St. at Lenoir St.","all_locations":[],"zoom":19,"creator":["City of Raleigh"],"description":"Edward Austin Johnson was born into slavery in Wake County in 1860 and went on to become one of North Carolina’s most influential Black educators and civic leaders. He attended Raleigh’s Washington School and later graduated from Atlanta University in 1883. Returning to Raleigh in 1885, he became principal of Washington School and enrolled in the first class of Shaw University’s new law school, the only law program open to African Americans between Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, Georgia.<br />\r\n<br />\r\nWhile at Shaw, Johnson wrote, A School History of the Negro Race in America (1891), the first textbook by a Black author approved by the North Carolina State Board of Education for public school use. After he earned his law degree in 1890, he lived in the Fourth Ward near South West Street and West Lenoir Street, and was elected alderman for the ward seven years later. Johnson later taught at his alma mater and served as dean of the law school from 1903 to 1906.<br />\r\n<br />\r\nHe moved to New York City soon after, where he became active in politics and, in 1918, served as the first Black member of the New York State Assembly. He attempted a run for  New York state senate seat in 1928. When Johnson died in 1944, much of his estate was dedicated to supporting a music scholarship at Shaw University and providing assistance for blind African American youth in Raleigh.","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"","lede":"","website":"","related_resources":[],"factoids":[],"files":{"https://mail.raleighhistoric.org/files/fullsize/c343bda7be6baaa7cbb37847ff4f942a.jpg":{"id":1140,"mime-type":"image/tiff","title":"Edward Austin Johnson, from The Crisis, Volume 15, No. 1, Edited by W.E.B. Du Bois and Written by James Weldon Johnson, November 1917 issue","description":"Courtesy of Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture","thumbnail":"https://mail.raleighhistoric.org/files/square_thumbnails/c343bda7be6baaa7cbb37847ff4f942a.jpg"}}}