After receiving his bacherlor’s degree from Bowie State College and his master’s and doctorate degrees from Kent State University, Johnson joined the Hope College faculty in 2000. His primary field is 19th-century U.S. history, specifically the Confederacy during the Civil War. He is in the process of revising his doctoral dissertation, “The Tracks of War: Confederate Rail Policy and the Struggle for the Baltimore & Ohio,” for publication.

Johnson, who is the author of two novels, “Bittersweet” (2002) and “A Man Finds His Way” (2003), is also conducting research for a biography of Henry O. Flipper, who was born a slave and, in 1877, became the first black graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point.