George E. Johnson, founder of pioneering Black hair products company, dies at 99

Steve Gorman, Reuters

The Johnson Products Company was founded in 1954, catering to African Americans’ evolving tastes in hairstyles and ​fashion, in an era when U.S. companies paid little attention to Black consumers.

George E. Johnson, the pioneering Chicago entrepreneur whose eponymous company transformed Black hair care in the U.S. with brands ​including Afro Sheen, Ultra Wave and Classy Curl, died on Monday at age 99, according to news media ‌reports.

Johnson, who was born in a sharecropper’s shack in Mississippi and moved to Chicago with his mother at age 2, died at his downtown Chicago condo of natural causes, the Chicago Sun-Times reported, citing his son, John Edward Johnson.

The New York Times, citing his second wife, Madeline Murphy Rabb, reported that ​Johnson died of a respiratory illness.

The Johnson Products Company was founded in 1954, catering to African Americans’ evolving tastes in hairstyles, ​fashion and cosmetics in an era when U.S. companies and advertisers paid little attention to Black consumers.

The ⁠business, which Johnson co-founded with his first wife, Joan Johnson, who died in 2019, grew to command nearly 80% of the ​Black hair care market by 1960, and in 1971 became the first Black-owned company listed on the American Stock Exchange, now known as NYSE American.

Learn more about the company and the man behind it.

Madam C. J. Walker was a similar trailblazing entrepreneur.

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