The Scott E Johnson Memorial Mural

By Lee Emmerich Jamison

Located at the Scott Johnson Elementary School, Huntsville, Texas.

Biography

Features: Mr. Scott Johnson

Features:Wall Photos

Features: Mantle Portraits

Features: Trophies, etc

Donors

Find out more about the programs of the Huntsville Independent School District ..

THE SCOTT E. JOHNSON MEMORIAL MURAL

Biography

The story of Scott Johnson reads like one of the poor-boy-makes-good stories which were so popular at the turn of the twentieth century. Born into crushing poverty in the Walker County (Texas) community of Gallilee in 1894, he lived with his family, who continued as free people to work the fields they had once toiled in as slaves. Into this community came Samuel Walker Houston, the son of Joshua Houston, a prosperous former slave of General Sam Houston. Mr. Houston formed a school. There he first taught his students practical industrial skills such as carpentry along with the "three R's". With extraordinary students like Scott Johnson he extended this education to challenge young people with the full intellectual range of modern culture.

This "community school" was held together by little more than the power of Houston's formidable will. After nearly 25 years will was no longer enough. Houston brought back Scott Johnson, now a well educated, mature man, to assist in the process of consolidating the community school with the Huntsville area "colored" schools.

At the death of his mentor Mr. Johnson became the principal of the reformulated school, a position which made him effectively the head of all the area's schools for blacks. In spite of a general resistance to black advancement in rural Texas Johnson was able to improve the conditions and the facilities in which black children were educated during the 1940's, and 50's. After his retirement in 1960 a new junior high school for blacks was named for Scott Johnson. Early in the 1990's the now integrated facility was renovated, expanded, and re-designated an elementary school. Through the more than thirty years after his retirement Johnson maintained a steady interest in his namesake. Even in his late 90's he returned to the school every year on his birthday.

At Mr. Johnson's death in the summer of 1995 The faculty of Scott Johnson Elementary began seeking a way to adequately memorialize the great man. At the same time Lee Jamison, a professional muralist whose children attended the school, was seeking a way to effectively demonstrate to the children there what went into the process of creating a real work of art. He had been unsatisfied with the brief demonstrations he had been able to do up to that point. When he spoke to Principal Barbara Skeeters about his idea she knew immediately that this was what she had been looking for and suggested the idea of a memorial. Thus was the Scott Johnson Mural begun.

What follows on this site is an explanation of the layout of this mural. It explains what the features are and why they are there. We hope that you will spend some time to explore with us the life of a man who "put children first". Scott Johnson overcame great obstacles to make something of himself. The last two-thirds of his life he gave of himself to make that process available to other similarly disadvantaged children. To us the fact that Scott Johnson was a black man does not limit the scope of his life to "Black" history. All of us are made greater by the realization that his story is a part of the majesty of HUMAN history. When we look at children and, regardless of outward appearances, see through to the wonder of their potential we are standing in part on the shoulders of a carpenter from Gallilee named Scott Edwin Johnson.

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Explanation of Features

A. Mr. Scott Johnson

1.Mr. Johnson is represented at four stages in his life.

First, (at Left) he is shown at twelve years of age as he began the first grade. He enters the mural on the far left to begin the "time-line" which the mural represents of the time Mr. Johnson was involved in schools.

Second,(at right) he is shown as a young man stepping away from a life of picking cotton into a life of academic achievement.

Third, (at left) he is depicted at about age fifty in his central role as a beloved black educator and principal of Sam Houston High School. An important feature of this image is Mr. Johnson's insistence on the importance of each child.

Fourth, (at right) he is depicted as the final image on the far right as he appeared at age 100.

2. The "time-line" of the image is to be seen in the changing styles of dress throughout Mr. Johnson's life and the widening of the scope of his influence. For the first half of the mural his influence is almost exclusively on black children. During the second half, his influence widens to include all races.

1. Sam Houston Industrial and Training School: Started in Galilee Community in 1905 by Samuel Walker Houston, this school made it possible for Scott Johnson to go to school, finally, at age 12.

2. Black Soldiers in World War I: Primarily limited to duty as stevedores and laborers, young black men were able to serve their country for the first time in large numbers in uniform during the First World War. Young Scott Johnson served during this war, spending time in Europe and even being declared dead when his company misplaced his papers.

3. Hampton Institute, Hampton, Va.: Immediately after the war a tragic backlash occurred in response to the uniformed service of blacks in the military. Many whites took it as a grave threat to the order of American society that blacks had been given such equality of status, and particularly that the French had treated these soldiers, especially those in combat service, as equals. Employment in any but the most menial jobs became nearly impossible for young black men to get. This affected Scott Johnson also, and he was forced to resort to working in the cotton fields. After three years picking cotton, Scott Johnson took the step that would forever separate him from the mainstream of young black men of his day. He attended Hampton institute, the institution that had educated both Booker T. Washington and Samuel Walker Houston. For the rest of his life he was committed to an educational philosophy that emphasized a sense of self-worth based on the ability to make a decent living.

4. Sam Houston High School, Huntsville: Established in 1929 by the consolidation of Sam Houston Industrial and Training School and Huntsville Community High School (colored), S.H.H.S. became one of the leading black high schools in Texas. Scott Johnson was assistant principal under Samuel Houston officially until 1945, but during the last of those years he served effectively as principal during periods of Samuel Houston's ill health. Upon Houston's death in 1945, Johnson officially became principal, serving until his retirement in 1960.

5. 100th Birthday, October 14, 1994: Mr. Scott Johnson is shown accepting a book written and illustrated by students at SJE. The book contained students' interpretations of his life story. Making the presentation was cover artist David Jamison, who was a second grader at that time. Though weak and in poor health, Mr. Johnson still made a point of shaking the young man's hand and making eye contact with him. To the end he "put children first."

C. On and over the mantle, counter clockwise from lower left

1. Sam Houston: Scott Johnson's educational lineage reached back to Sam Houston, who permitted his favorite slave and personal body servant, Joshua, to be educated to read, write, and "figure." In Houston's absenses Joshua was the only person allowed access to his law office, a full wall of which was filled with his collection of books.

2. Joshua Houston: A man of tremendous integrity and industry, Joshua came to Sam Houston's household at the General's marriage to Margaret Lea. Joshua had been willed to Margaret by her father and was deeply devoted to her throughout her life. Joshua remained close to Margaret even in the years she lived after he was freed in 1863. Joshua became a leading citizen in the newly freed black community. He was listed as a trustee in the charters of many of Huntsville's black churches, and was elected to public office several times. He was elected County Commissioner in 1888, long after the protective umbrella of Reconstruction had been withdrawn. He was one of the last two black public office holders from Walker County until Scott Johnson became the first black office holder from the county in the twentieth century by being elected to Huntsville City Council in 1966. Joshua Houston not only ran Sam Houston's business interests during his many absences, but he also amassed what amounted to a small fortune by his employments, as a blacksmith and stagecoach driver, outside the household. The Houstons allowed Joshua to keep much of these earnings. By Sam Houston's death, these savings amounted to about $2,000 in U.S. currency and gold. The newly widowed Margaret refused a gift of this gold, telling Joshua to use the money to educate his children instead. Joshua did exactly that. His youngest son, whom he named after his late master the following year, made the most of this legacy.

3. Samuel Walker Houston: Samuel Walker Houston attended Atlanta University, Hampton Institute, and Howard University in Washington, D.C.. Upon his return to Walker County, Mr. Houston, after some educational work in Grimes County, started the Sam Houston Industrial and Training School at Galilee. This school made it possible for Scott Johnson to attend school for the first time. In later years, Mr. Houston brought Mr. Johnson back to the area to assist in the consolidation of the rural community schools with the city colored schools. Samuel Walker Houston served as principal of Sam Houston High School until his death in 1945.

4. Booker T. Washington: Educated in the 1870's at Hampton Institute, Washington wholeheartedly accepted the institution's philosophy of black advancement through industrial education. He established the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, in the early 1880's (in part) to prove that an institution of higher education focusing on practical industrial training could be successful in the South. Though he was the subject of intense controversy in the black community because of what many saw as a capitulation to southern white supremacists, he became the leading black proponent of the industrial model of black advancement after a speech at the 1895 International Cotton Exposition in Atlanta. Washington was an influence on Scott Johnson, both through Samuel Houston's reliance on a modification of Washinton's industrial education model, and through his continued contacts with both the Hampton Institute and the Tuskegee Institute.

D. Other Items of Interest

1.Trophies: In 1951, During Scott Johnson's tenure as principal, Sam Houston High School won state championships in both football and basketball. The first state championships by a Huntsville school.

Far left: Young Scott Johnson is shown walking into the light of a window with a springtime view.

Near center: Mr. Johnson is shown in the center of the light of the summer window. The window is open top and bottom to symbolize the fresh breeze of his presence.

Far right: The light, and the responsibility, of the autumn window falls on a new generation. The young man shown in the window is Mr. Johnson's great grandson. According to former Huntsville assistant superintendant Clayton Waits this young man became, in the mid 1990s, the first black class president in Baylor college history.

3. Perspective: Adults may sense that some of the figures seem disproportionately small. This is a result of the fact that the work is painted to be seen from a child's perspective. The proper viewing position for an adult would be seated with an eye level about four feet high. A good viewing distance is about fifteen feet or more away.

E.  Donors:

Our special thanks go to the following for providing funding to make the Scott E. Johnson Memorial Mural possible.

Huntsville Independent School District Fine Arts Council
Scott Johnson Elementary P.T.A.
National Association of Sam Houston High School Alumni
Huntsville Chamber of Commerce
Dr. and Mrs. Hal Conwell
Mr. and Mrs. Rowe Creager
Mr. Brian Gedelian
Mr. and Mrs. Don Hawkins
Mrs Willie Head
Mr. Andrew C. Jamison
Jones and Granger Law Firm
Dr. David Prier
Wayne Rainwater
Mrs Peggy Shawaker
Mr. and Mrs John Skeeters
Mrs. Darlene Vela