Collect Day #36, DR. ALBERT C. JOHNSON
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit your faithful people are governed open our hearts to all people: Remind us to use the gifts that You have given us in the service of others without judgement. Show us through the lives of your saints that to give faithful service to your children is right and just. Teach us by the example of Dr. Johnson who gave freely of his medical skill and harnessed your healing power. Let us undo wherever we can any hint of racial prejudice and always practice your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
DAY #36, March 27, 2018
Keene
DR. ALBERT C. JOHNSON
(1900-1988)
Jeff Bolster
Dr. Albert C. Johnson was born in 1900. An accomplished physician who practiced medicine for decades in Gorham and Keene, NH, Johnson had a welcoming smile. He never appeared to be mysterious. But Johnson had a secret.
Born and raised in Chicago, he matriculated at the University of Chicago’s Rush Medical College – one of the most prestigious in the nation. While there he married a lovely young woman with a German name, Thyra Baumann. Upon graduating he secured an internship at the Maine General Hospital, in Portland. And when the General Practitioner in Gorham, NH died, opportunity knocked.
Gorham was a lovely town at the foot of the White Mountains. Dr. Johnson soon felt the special brand of craggy hospitality found in the North Country. A country doctor, he responded to summons at all hours. He set broken bones, pulled teeth and birthed babies. He joined Rotary and was elected to the School Board. The Johnsons and their children loved Gorham, but it was small. When the opportunity arose to study radiology at Harvard for a year, he took it. That led to a position in the hospital in Keene.
By then, war clouds were gathering. After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Americans lined up to serve. Dr. Johnson applied for a commission in the U.S. Navy. That would require a thorough background check. He gambled his secret would be safe.
A clean-cut young man from the Bureau of Naval Intelligence showed up. “We understand that even though you are registered as White, you have colored blood in your veins.”
“Who knows what blood any of us has in our veins,” replied the doctor.
The Navy knew. They denied Johnson a commission because of “inability to meet physical requirements.” In other words, he wasn’t 100% White.
Dr. Johnson and his wife had never intended to pass as White. Both were light-skinned, but both grew up knowing their Negro heritage. Johnson’s father had been raised in Michigan, a very light-skinned man of color whose ancestors were free Blacks. His mother, also very light, knew both her parents had been Mississippi slaves. Thyra Baumann Johnson’s German grandfather had emigrated to New Orleans, where he married a “colored” woman.
Both Johnsons had Negro friends and family members. Dr. Johnson had gone to medical school as a Negro. Rush Medical College had a quota – two Blacks per class. While there he joined a Black fraternity. Navy investigators easily uncovered that paper trail. He had only begun to live as White during his residency in Maine, because they would not have taken a Black doctor.
Throughout his life Johnson heard quizzical inquiries, triggered by his olive skin and wavy hair. “Do you think they are colored?” His son, Albert, Jr., got similar questions. At Mount Hermon, the exclusive prep school, his roommate put it bluntly “What are you?” “A kike or a Greek, or what? I bet you’ve got some nigger in you.” But unlike his parents, who had been raised in the culture and society of light-skinned Blacks, Albert Jr. was just a White kid from Gorham, a good skier and member of the Congregationalist Church. Or so he thought.
The news affected every family member differently. Dr. Johnson’s daughter, Anne, became anti-white. Dr. Johnson resigned from Rotary, and lost his zest for life, despite staying on at Keene Hospital. He was still respected but felt no longer fully accepted. “Whatever I do,” he said, pointing to his credentials from the University of Chicago and Harvard, “my race gets no credit.”
Albert Jr. slipped into depression. Would girls accept his advances? Would he have a career? A cross-country trip with a White kid who didn’t care a bit that Albert was “colored” finally turned him around. They visited Albert’s Black relatives in Los Angeles, and Albert dated a Black girl in Berkeley. Tensions abounded, but he came to accept himself, and ultimately enrolled at UNH.
Most White people in post-war America were ashamed of prejudices and tried not to show them, even as they felt that Blacks should know their place. Meanwhile, upper echelon Black society remained deeply suspicious of Whites. Dr. Johnson was not ashamed of being “colored,” but to work, he had to pass. Ultimately, he and his family paid a steep price, right here in New Hampshire. Their choices, and their society’s taboos, are worth pondering.
This true tale was the subject of a Hollywood film, Lost Boundaries, made in 1949. You can find it on the internet.
