It took 59 years and 12 white ministers before Howard University finally had its first Black president. Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, Howard’s 13th president, took office in 1926 at just 36 years old.

On this episode of On the Yard, President Johnson’s legacy comes to life – from his days as a Baptist minister to leading Howard through the most pivotal time of the 20th century. Dr. Benjamin Talton, director of MSRC, is joined by Dr. Krista Johnson, professor and director of Howard’s Center for African Studies, and Sonja Woods, university archivist for MSRC.

Together, they discuss Mordecai Wyatt Johnson’s historic tenure as Howard’s first Black president, including his initiatives to position Howard as a global intellectual hub, his promotion of academic freedom, and his admiration for global figures like Gandhi, which shaped Howard's involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.

Episode Guide:

00:00 Introduction to Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

02:15 Early Life and Background

04:23 Howard University During President Johnson's Tenure

07:03 President Johnson's Vision and Institutional Impact

09:30 Challenges and Controversies

13:30 International Influence and Nonviolent Action

31:55 Legacy and Influence on Future Leaders

36:24 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

On the Yard is a production of The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University and is produced by University FM.

Mordecai’s legacy lives in the leaders who came after him

[35:09] Sonja Woods: I think there's so many books and articles and things that need to be written coming out of the presidential papers, a serious one thing, though, is the number of college presidents that came out of his faculty, during his tenure, the number of college presidents. We have Dwight Holmes went on, and he was a Howard alum. He went on to be president of Morgan. Charles Wesley was the president of two HBCUs. Benjamin Mays left him, was president, Morehouse. William Stewart Nelson was the college president of two HBCUs. We got to throw Jennifer in there, Franklin Jennifer. We got to throw him in there. But that's minor compared to these other guys, who were alum and faculty sometimes, mostly faculty. But it's clear what they learned or what they were able to absorb from Mordecai, just looking at their titles, their roles, their positions at Howard.

Howard’s global impact started at the top

[06:23]: Dr. Krista Johnson: The more I have been digging into the intellectual and the scholarly scholarship of those two individuals in particular, but also the climate at Howard at that time, the more I came to understand that these were remarkable individuals, but there was also an institution and there was an institutional architecture that emerged here at Howard University that nurtured these intellectuals at the time and also really created an environment to have discourse and dialogue and conversation across races, across international boundaries. And much of that, it can be attributed to the first president, Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, who was, I think, had the foresight to position Howard as a global institution and an institution of global consequence.

On the golden era of Black academia

[01:41]: Dr. Krista Johnson: President Johnson presided over Howard University during really a fascinating time in its history, and really a growth era…The golden era of Black academia at Howard in particular, where you really just had some of the who's who of Black intelligentsia that were either faculty here at Howard or who were orbiting around Howard in terms of the conferences, the intellectual engagement that was happening right here on The Yard in those decades.

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