Name Stretch Johnson | ||
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Howard Eugene Johnson (30 January 1915 – 28 May 2000), better known as "Stretch" Johnson, was a tap dancer and social activist.
In 1936, he joined his brother Bobby and his sister, Winnie, one of the featured dancers at the Cotton Club, to form an act called the Three Johnsons, which was featured in New Faces of 1936 and the Duke Ellington Revue of 1937 at the Apollo Theater. He later acted in a Harlem production of Clifford Odets play Waiting for Lefty.
A member of the N.A.A.C.P. since he was 15, he served in the 92nd 'Buffalo'Division' in World War II, winning two Purple Hearts.
Johnson joined the Young Communist League of Harlem in 1940, prompted in part by lynchings in the American South and remained in the Communist Party USA until the late 1950s when he and many other members left over Khrushchev's revelations about Stalin.
He became a printer, and worked at The New York Times. He earned a high school equivalency diploma and then a degree from Columbia University. Johnson subsequently taught black studies at the Fieldston School and later taught sociology at the State University of New York at New Paltz.