Lyman T. Johnson
| Lyman Johnson | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Lyman Beecher Tefft Johnson June 12, 1906 Columbia, Tennessee, USA |
| Died | October 3, 1997 (aged 91) Louisville, Kentucky |
| Education | Virginia Union University (1930), University of Michigan (1931) |
| Occupation | Kentucky educator, school administrator, and desegregation pioneer |
| Known for | Challenging Kentucky's Day Law |
| Awards | Doctor of Letters (University of Kentucky, 1979) |
Lyman Tefft Johnson (June 12, 1906 – October 3, 1997) was an American educator and influential role model for racial desegregation in Kentucky. He is best known as the plaintiff whose successful legal challenge opened the University of Kentucky to African-American students in 1949.
Born in Columbia, Tennessee in 1906, Johnson was the eighth of nine children and the grandson of former slaves. Hall's father was educated in party by Edmund Kelly and Lyman Beecher Tefft, after whom Johnson was named. Hall's father was a graduate of Roger Williams school and principal at a school in Columbia.
In 1926, he received his high school diploma from the preparatory division of Knoxville College. After earning his bachelor's degree in Greek from Virginia Union University in 1930, he went on to receive a master's degree in history from the University of Michigan in 1931. Johnson was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
Johnson served in the United States Navy during World War II; he has commented on the high point of his Naval career:
Toward the end of the war, long about the middle of '44, or maybe the beginning of '44, they made twelve ensigns, and they announced then to all the rest of us that, "We're making twelve ensigns. We won't make any more, and they won't be promoted." In other words, don't aspire for anything. So what they did in my group, they had 47 of us so-called educated Negroes stationed up there at Great Lakes. They didn't know what to do with us. I remember Commander Caufield who ran Great Lakes. He was the commander of the center. He told me, 'Well, my God, sailor,' that's what he called me, 'You fellows, some of you got more education than these officers that are appointed to serve over you. We don't know what to do with you. We don't have the nerve to be trying to tell you, when you outrank us in education. So you find something to do on your own.' I think there were about twenty of us who decided that the best service we could render would be to run a school for illiterates, and many a time, 5,000 black sailors would be dumped on Great Lakes from down in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, right out of the cotton field, hadn't been to school one day in their lives. We'd take them in little batches for seven weeks. We said, 'Give them to us for seven weeks, and we'll have them passing what the public school called third grade tests.' We must have had something on the ball...that was the biggest contribution that I rendered....
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