George Perry Johnson was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, October 29, 1885; after his graduation from the Hampton Institute, Virginia (1904), he settled in Tulsa, Oklahoma and started the first Negro paper in the territory, The Tulsa Guide (June 9, 1906); moved to Omaha, Nebraska (1913) and was the first Negro employee at the U.S. Post Office in that city; he eventually moved to Los Angeles and continued working for the post office.
George Johnson’s brother Noble, already a noted film actor with Universal Film Company, formed the Lincoln Motion Picture Company in 1915 to produce and distribute nationally photoplays of and by Negroes. George joined the company as booking manager, distributor, producer and writer.
The company produced five films: A Man’s Duty; By Right of Birth; Trooper of Troop K; Realization of the Negro’s Ambition; and The Law of Nature. This would set the stage in 1918 for Oscar Micheaux to form the Micheaux Film and Book Company keep Black independent filmmaking viable until 1948. After the demise of Lincoln Motion Picture Company in 1923, Mr. Johnson established and ran the Pacific Coast News Bureau for the dissemination of Negro news of national importance (1923-27); he started the Negros in Film collection about the time he started working for Lincoln; he died October 17, 1977.
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