Wallace Johnson was born January 1, 1932, in Grady, Lincoln County, Arkansas. Wallace is a grandson of Samuel Johnson, who migrated from South Carolina to work on the Valley Plantation in Arkansas in 1902.
Wallace was raised on the H. R. Wood Plantation near Grassy Lake and a smaller plantation in the same area. He attended the eighth grade in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and returned to Arkansas at the end of the school year. After high school, he enrolled in Arkansas AM&N, now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and earned a B.S. in business. Wallace then moved to Washington State and attended the University of Washington, where he completed an M.B.A. After graduating, he settled in Seattle.
Wallace has worked for the Boeing Company, the City of Seattle, construction firms, and nonprofit organizations. He is president of the Mount Zion Housing Development Board of Directors in Seattle.
In his interview Wallace provides a perspective on the differences in African American education between northern and southern states and discusses the conditions that facilitated his exodus from the American South.
#1: Still frame from video interview with Wallace Johnson at the John Hancock Jr. residence; Winchester, Arkansas, 2023
© Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas
#2: Wallace Johnson's great-grandfather, Crimer Epps, wearing a Mosaic Templars of America badge and ribbon; Photo courtesy of Zack Carter Jr.
© Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas
#3: Wallace Johnson's graduation portrait; Photo courtesy of Wallace Johnson
© Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas
#4: Wallace Johnson with his daughter, Cecilia Comer, at the gravesite of his grandfather, Samuel Johnson; grave marker inscription below the Mosiac Templars symbol reads "Samuel Johnson, Born Feb. 28, 1878., Died July 27, 1916., — Lily of the Valley Chamber 1007, Winchester, Ark."; Cypress Grove Cemetery, Valley Plantation, Winchester, Arkansas; October 5, 2023
© Arkansas Archeological Survey, University of Arkansas System
#5: Still frame from video interview with Wallace Johnson at the John Hancock Jr. residence; Winchester, Arkansas, 2023
© Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas
