No task was too mundane for the Rev. B.J. Johnson Jr. as pastor of Greater Mt. Calvary Baptist Church.
He would roll up his shirtsleeves to mop and mow the grass. He’d shop for groceries for meals the church provided to the homeless and hungry. Sometimes, he’d even help cook the food, too.
“He would always avail himself to help others,” said church member Mollie Wainwright of Atlanta. “He would even go to a member’s house and mow the lawn. He was there for everything. He was a wonderful person.”
Johnson of Atlanta died April 8. He was 83. His funeral was April 11 at Kingdom Difference Church, the historic site of Greater Mt. Calvary Baptist in Atlanta’s Mechanicsville community.
He was born in 1931 in the historically black intown Atlanta neighborhood of Pittsburgh, just south of downtown near West End and Mechanicsville. His upbringing as a preacher’s kid at Greater Mt. Calvary nurtured his zeal for education, ministry, community activism and human rights.
In 1950, he graduated from Booker T. Washington High School, where he played football, baseball and basketball. He attended Morehouse College for two years before leaving in 1952 to join the Army. He served in the Korean War and was awarded the Purple Heart.
After the war, he returned to Morehouse and graduated in 1958. He worked at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and participated in civil rights protests with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Johnson attended Turner Theological Seminary in Atlanta and began his journey in the ministry at three Atlanta area Baptist churches before following in the footsteps of his grandfather and father at Greater Mt. Calvary.
For nearly a century, four generations of his family have served as pastor of the church.
His grandfather, Benjamin Johnson, was a founding member and pastor from 1917 to 1927. Then his father, Benjamin Joseph Johnson Sr., took the helm for a 50-year tenure that included working with the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. on civil rights causes in the 1940s and 1950s. The church hosted civil rights meetings. Atlanta’s first black police officers were honored there in 1948.
In 1977, Johnson succeeded his father as pastor and retired in 2012. Now his nephew, Albert Lindsey Jr., leads the flock. Under Lindsey’s leadership, the church was renamed Kingdom Difference about two years ago.
“He was a man of integrity who cared about his community,” Lindsey said of his uncle. “The church was his life, making sure it was vibrant and relevant and welcoming to anyone who wanted to come. There was no one he would not attempt to help if he felt he could help.”
To provide needed housing for seniors, Johnson and his father built the first senior high-rise apartment building in Mechanicsville in the 1970s, Lindsey said. As pastor, Johnson started one of the first church programs to feed the area’s homeless people.
Johnson also supported youth programs that promoted education and recreational activities to expose the neighborhood children to places and opportunities outside their community. “He would sponsor children going to camp if their parents could not afford it – from his personal funds and not the church’s,” Lindsey said.
Johnson also loved fishing and was an avid checker player and member of the Georgia Pool Checker Club. When he moved into a nursing facility, he made sure he took his checkerboard with him.
“He would get frustrated because no one there could play at his level,” his nephew said. “So he decided to teach the other residents to play and found enjoyment in teaching. In a way, he was still helping people.”
Johnson is survived by his daughter Cynthia Johnson Solomon of Albany, Ga.; his son Benjamin J. Johnson III and daughter Teresa W. Knox, both of Atlanta; one sister, Lena J. McLin of Chicago; seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
About the Author
