Edward Austin Johnson was born in Wake County, North Carolina back in 1860. He attended Washington High School then Atlanta University. He was a school principal from 1883 to 1891, first in Atlanta and then in Raleigh, North Carolina.
He earned a law degree at Shaw University in 1891, practicing in the Raleigh area. He also taught at Shaw as he was the first graduate of the law school, serving as dean. He won every case he argued before the North Carolina Supreme Court. He died in 1944, he was 84.
What you may not know about Edward is that he was the first African-American member of the New York state legislature when he was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1917. He also was an author he wrote A School History of the Negro Race in America, it was the first textbook by a black to be approved by the North Carolina state Board of Education for use in public schools.
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