Besides being “the premier chronicler of mid-century African-American life in San Francisco,” David S. Johnson (b. 1926) was also the first black student of Ansel Adams, the environmentally-conscious legend of photography.  [1]  Moreover, David Johnson was a graduate of the first fine art photography program in the United States, which Adams founded in 1945 at the California School of Fine Arts, which is now the San Francisco Art Institute.  [2]

This Sunday, Feb. 20, Johnson will be featured in a short documentary screening that looks at his life and his work.

As a longtime resident of the Fillmore, Johnson captured the vibrant jazz scene, as well as the everyday life of blacks in the district, before and during the infamous “Negro removal” of the 1950s and ’60s, whereby some 20,000 residents were displaced from their homes, most of whom were never able to return.  [3]

In 1938, at the age of 12, Johnson became fascinated with photography when he won “a small camera in a contest and began snapping photos.”  [4]  Johnson first came to San Francisco as an enlistee in the U.S. Navy, but returned to his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida, after World War II.  [5]

Unable to find anywhere to study photography in Florida, Johnson, having seen a notice in Popular Photography announcing a new photography department being started by Ansel Adams at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, wrote directly to Adams.  [6]  Since he had grown up and lived under very rigid segregation in Jacksonville - essentially, “de facto slavery” - Johnson explicitly stated in his letter that he was “a Negro.”  [7]

In a flash, Adams replied to Johnson, stating that “if I was a Negro and wanted to study photography there, that was fine.”  [8]  Soon enough, Johnson “hopped on a segregated train at the Jacksonville depot,” and arrived in San Francisco on Aug. 27, 1946.  [9]

Until he found his own place in the Fillmore district, Johnson lived at Adams’s house, with a few other photographers, at 121 24th Ave. in San Francisco.  [10]  However, Johnson still frequented the house near Sea Cliff to get private lessons from Minor White in Adams’s own darkroom.  [11]  Johnson credits becoming an excellent photographic printer to White, who served as the director of the photography program at CSFA.  [12]

Before marrying, starting a family and opening Johnson Studio in a Fillmore storefront “with a three-bedroom apartment in the back,” [13] Johnson met Edward Howden, who was the director of the Council for Civic Unity, “the premier interracial organization working against discrimination in San Francisco” from 1944 through the early ’60s.  [14]

Howden prompted Johnson to capture (with his camera) the social problems already beginning to fester in the Fillmore.  [15]  And as Johnson did so, the neighborhood became significant in his “photographic life.”  [16]

Spurred by Howden and by his new position as a staff reporter for the dawning Sun-Reporter, the oldest black newspaper west of the Rocky Mountains, Johnson somewhat unwittingly embarked upon documentary photography.  [17]

Through his conversations with Howden, Johnson began to see a strong correlation between the photographs he was taking of “slum housing” in the Fillmore and  San Francisco city politics.  [18]  Johnson soon realized that “the people in San Francisco were the worst bigots of all because they were hiding behind a façade of liberalism.”  [19] 

Despite the Fillmore’s gradual decline and demolition, Johnson’s photography captured the presence and vibrancy of blacks in the neighborhood that also was  known as the Harlem of the West.  

In addition to visually documenting “ordinary African Americans, children and adults, going about the mundane routines, rites and rituals,” Johnson simultaneously caught the jazz musicians who performed at nightclubs like the Primalon Ballroom and the Booker T. Washington Cocktail Lounge from the late 1940s through the ’50s.  [20]

Johnson also has photographed such cultural icons as Nat “King” Cole, Eartha Kitt, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, W. E. B. Du Bois, Aaron Thibadeaux “T-Bone” Walker, Langston Hughes and Jackie Robinson.  [21]  One of Johnson’s most poignant images is that “of a young black boy sitting in the lap of a statue of Abraham Lincoln,” which the photographer shot during the 1963 March on Washington.  [22]

At 84, David Johnson still shoots and exhibits his work of more than 50 years, nationwide.

This Sunday's screening of "Positive Negatives: The Photography of David Johnson" begins at 6 p.m. at the Jazz Heritage Center-1330 Fillmore St. in San Francisco. The 35-minute film, directed by Mindy Steiner, is an official selection of the San Francisco International Women’s Film Festival, The Tiburon Film Festival and the San Diego Black Film Festival.  [23]

The event at the Jazz Heritage Center is open to the public and free of charge. A modest reception will follow.  For more details, visit jazzheritagecenter.org/eventdetail.php?id=93.

Sources:

[1] Robert Speer, “Photographer of the Fillmore,” Chico News & Review, December 11, 2008, accessed February 14, 2011, http://www.newsreview.com/chico/content?oid=886975.

[2] “David S. Johnson Photography,” Togonon Gallery, accessed February 14, 2011, http://davidsjohnsonphotography.com/about.html.

[3] “The Fillmore,” PBS, accessed February 14, 2011, http://www.pbs.org/kqed/fillmore/program/index.html.

[4] Elizabeth Pepin and Lewis Watts, eds., Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2006), 20.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid, 21.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Paul T. Miller, “San Francisco (California) Riot of 1966” in Walter C. Rucker and James N. Upton, eds., Encyclopedia of American Race Riots, Vol. 2 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), 583.

[15] Pepin and Watts, Harlem of the West, 21.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] “David S. Johnson Photography,” Togonon Gallery, accessed February 14, 2011, http://davidsjohnsonphotography.com/about.html.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Speer, “Photographer of the Fillmore.”

[23] “Film Screening,” Jazz Heritage Center San Francisco, accessed February 14, 2011, http://jazzheritagecenter.org/eventdetail.php?id=93.

About Corey Olds

Corey Olds graduated from Oberlin College (Oberlin, Ohio) in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in French literature. From there, he matriculated to Stanford University, where he pursued a joint Ph.D. in History and Humanities. Upon receiving a graduate degree from Stanford, Mr. Olds became an assistant professor of history at Portland State University (Portland, Oregon) in 2001. Prior to accepting his professorship, Olds worked as a full-time history teacher at The Branson School in Ross, California. In 2005, Olds accepted the position of director of curriculum development at the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas, Nevada. Besides writing curriculum for the middle and high schools, he taught U.S. history and Latin. In 2006, Olds became a certified TAP (Teacher Advancement Program) mentor teacher. He is also the recipient of educational grants from the Las Vegas Rotary Club and the Target Corporation. As an educational entrepreneur, Mr. Olds has been delivering supplemental education services (ranging from English grammar and composition to verbal preparation for standardized tests to foreign languages and African-American history) to middle and secondary schoolers through Futurum, which he founded in June of 2006. His clients have included families in Nevada and in California, where he has also contracted with independent schools such as Head-Royce School, The Urban School, St. Paul’s Episcopal School, and San Francisco Day School, offering individual tutoring and presenting workshops and lectures on diversity and supporting students of color, particularly African-American boys in grades K-12. Since May of 2009, Olds has worked as the co-founder of the Excelsus Foundation, an educational trust actively engaged in narrowing the achievement gap between so-called privileged and less-privileged students, as well as providing extensive academic support and mentoring to African-American boys and girls. Olds and fellow co-founder Willie Adams launched the Excelsus August Institute for African-American Boys in 2009 and conducted the Excelsus Saturday Institute for African-American Boys from January through June 2010. For both, Olds designed curriculum and served as lead instructor. Most recently, Mr. Olds was the history coach for Team MAJITU, a group of eighth-graders sponsored by the 100 Black Men of the Bay Area, Inc. for competition in the national “African American History Challenge” at the 24th Annual Conference of the 100 Black Men of America, Inc. in Hollywood, Florida. Olds also presented a workshop for African-American boys in grades 6-12, “What They Think about You; or Becoming Media Literate” at the 2nd Annual Man Up Conference in Oakland, California, on July 24, 2010. In July of 1992, Olds received the Helping Hands Award for Outstanding Young Adult Achievement from A Better Community Development, Inc. of Canton, Ohio, for his work in the field of education. www.excelsusfoundation.com excelsusfoundation@me.com