(AURN News) — George E. Johnson, the pioneering entrepreneur who built a Black hair-care empire, has died at 99, according to The New York Times. Born in a sharecropper’s shack in Mississippi, Johnson moved to Chicago as a child and later founded Johnson Products with his wife, Joan, in 1954.
The company created popular brands including Ultra Sheen and Afro Sheen, dominating much of the Black hair-care market during the 1960s. In 1971, Johnson Products became the first Black-owned company listed on a major American stock exchange. The company also became the first Black-controlled business to sponsor a national television program through its longtime partnership with “Soul Train.”
Johnson later helped establish Independence Bank of Chicago, one of the nation’s largest Black-owned banks.
Rest in power, George E. Johnson.
