Gerald W. Johnson: Celebrating 100 Years

He steps smoothly into Mr. B’s, his favorite New Orleans retreat, to relax with his spouse and business partner, Valerie Voorhies. He is dressed casually, neatly, and comfortably. Adorning his head is a cap with the inscription: Took 100 years to look this good.
 

And he smiles about it. “He” is Gerald Johnson, publisher and co-founder of the Small Business Exchange trade newspaper, digital and print. “It” is his 100th birthday, which impends (January 28).
 

There were a lot of experiences leading up to this and several yet to come. For example, the California-based Construction Contractors Alliance announced a scholarship in his honor. And something is stirring in San Francisco along the lines of a proclamation. His world percolates. But leading up to today . . .
 

In 1946, Gerald W. Johnson left service in the US Navy and returned home to New Orleans. He was forced to leave town in a hurry after refusing to sit behind a sign in an area designated for “Coloreds.” He ended up in San Francisco and almost immediately began building his legend.
 

Shortly after getting settled in San Francisco, he organized a successful picket line to protest the absence of Black workers employed in retail shops in the Fillmore District. He was just getting started.
 

Next, he and some friends formed the Civic Progressive Union and took the protest to San Francisco’s theatre district. Subsequently, the local NAACP joined in with its support.
 

Johnson then organized in the Carpenters Union to get more Black business agents hired. That organizing continues in Southern California to this day. And where titans connected, Johnson got renaissance man Paul Robeson booked into a local Black church to perform, at a time when Robeson was blacklisted in the US and unable to secure concert bookings.
 

In 1969, according to research by writer Marie Sheahan Brown, “(t)he Martin Luther King-Marcus Garvey Square Cooperative Apartments were slated for the Fillmore District—the first in San Francisco to be built by Black construction workers.” Johnson, however, decried the absence of Black-owned lumber companies involved in the effort—so he started one.

 

By the mid-1970s, the United Minority Business and Professional Association, founded by Johnson and under his direction, negotiated an affirmative action program for the reconstruction of San Francisco’s public schools (aptly called ABLE: Asian-Black-Latino Enterprises). (Reference: The Postwar Struggle for Civil Rights, African- Americans in San Francisco, 1945–1975, by Paul T. Miller.)

 

And there is the thriving Small Business Exchange, which boasts three digital and print publications covering the nation from coast to coast.

 

“SBE was founded with the explicit purpose of providing small (minority-, woman-, disadvantaged-, disabled-, disabled-veteran- and veteran-owned) businesses with access to information that enables them to successfully enter and compete in the US economy. The goal was to provide a communications network that would serve as an alternative to the 'old-boy network.' As such, the SBE communication network is designed to cut across the many institutions that house information and to put small businesses in direct contact with the information they need to successfully compete for private and public sector contracting opportunities.” (Reference: SBE, Inc.)

 

Gerald W. Johnson looks amazing. Happy 100th birthday, good sir, and thank you for your service.

 

References

 

The Postwar Struggle for Civil Rights, African-Americans in San Francisco, 1945–1975, by Paul T. Miller

 

"From the Back of the Bus to Market Street, Suite 1000," by Marie Sheahan Brown, Small Business Exchange Northeast, 01-28-2014

 

"Gerald W. Johnson: Champion of Diversity at 99," by Käto Cooks, Louisiana Business Journal, 01-23-2024

 

Recognitions

 

2017—SFAACC African American Chamber of Commerce Pinnacle Award

2014—San Francisco African American Historical and Cultural Society, Black History Month Award

2014—SFAACC African American Chamber of Commerce Lifetime Achievement Award

2010—Certification of Proclamation to the Louisiana Business Journal from Mayor Mitch Landrieu

2009—Bay Area Contract Compliance Officers Association (BACCOA), 25 Years of Service to the Women and Minority Business Community

 

2007—National Association of Minority Contractors of Southern California, Minority Business Advocate of the Year

2005—United States Department of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), Minority Media Cornerstone Award

1990–1995—Black Business Association of Los Angeles Commendation by Senator Dianne Feinstein
1990–1995—Recognition by Congresswoman Yvonne Braithwaite Burke
1990–1995—Minority Business Enterprise of the Year by Mayor Tom Bradley

 

Käto Cooks, born in New Orleans in 1950, is a contributing writer with SBE (since 2008) and a professional member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Press Photographers Association. Parts of this article were lifted from an article on Gerald Johnson’s 99th birthday, written by Cooks and published last year. As an avocation, Cooks is a documentary filmmaker. His animated documentary, Hibakusha, is streaming on Amazon Prime presently.