Afro Sheen

About the Author

George Ellis Johnson, Sr., is the founder of the Johnson Products Company, the maker of Ultra Sheen and Afro Sheen, the first Black-owned company to trade on a major stock exchange, the financial sponsor of Soul Train, and once likely the largest Black-owned manufacturing company in the world. Known for his generosity around Chicago and nationally, Johnson has received numerous honors for the philanthropic contributions of the George E. Johnson Foundation and the George E. Johnson Educational Fund, which awarded more than 1000 college scholarships. In 1964, he co-founded Independence Bank, the first Black-owned financial institution to operate in Chicago in more than 30 years after the Great Depression, and became its chairman. He served on the boards of the Chicago Urban League, Commonwealth Edison, Lyric Opera of Chicago, MetLife, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwestern University, and Operation PUSH. The recipient of nine honorary doctorate degrees, including several from HBCUs, Johnson received the Harvard Medal, Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Marketing Man of the Year recognition, and Chicago Mayor Harold Washington’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1999, the Wall Street Journal included him in its Special Report “10 Who Made a Difference: The minds that transformed entrepreneurship in the 20th century.”
 

Learn more about this author