George E. Johnson, the entrepreneur who built one of the most successful Black-owned companies in American history, died Monday (July 6) at his downtown Chicago condominium. He was 99.
His son, John Edward Johnson, confirmed his passing to the Chicago Sun-Times, saying his father died of natural causes.
The New York Times, citing his wife, Madeline Murphy Rabb, reported that Johnson died of a respiratory illness.
His family said in a statement that he "passed away peacefully at home, leaving behind an extraordinary legacy of entrepreneurship, faith, perseverance, philanthropy, and family."
Johnson founded Johnson Products Company in 1954 with his first wife, Joan Johnson, after securing a $250 loan by telling a white banker he needed it for a family vacation — a workaround born of necessity after his application for a business loan had been rejected outright.
"I knew this request wouldn't rattle [the loan officer's] belief that he was superior to me," Johnson wrote in his 2025 memoir, Afro Sheen. "Nor would it challenge his stereotypes of Black men as subservient or unintelligent."
The company, based on Chicago's South Side, grew to command nearly 80 percent of the Black hair care market by 1960, per Reuters.
In 1971, Johnson Products became the first Black-owned business listed on the American Stock Exchange — a landmark moment in the history of Black entrepreneurship in the United States. That same year, Johnson became the first Black American to serve on the board of directors of Commonwealth Edison.
The company's early products — Ultra Wave for men and Ultra Sheen for women — were hair-relaxing treatments designed for home use. As the Black Power movement gave rise to a new embrace of natural hair in the late 1960s, Johnson Products adapted with the Afro Sheen Blow Out Kit, and later helped popularize the Jheri curl with its Classy Curl line.
Rather than turning to mainstream advertising agencies, Johnson hired Black-owned firms to develop campaigns that depicted Black Americans with dignity — a groundbreaking approach at the time.
The company became the first national sponsor of Soul Train, helping the Chicago-based music show grow from a local broadcast to a nationally syndicated phenomenon.
Johnson Products eventually faced competition from major corporations like Revlon moving into the Black hair care market.
After the Johnsons divorced, ownership changed hands several times before a majority Black American investment firm acquired it from Procter & Gamble in 2009, per Reuters.
He is survived by his wife, Madeline Murphy Rabb, his sons Eric George Johnson, John Edward Johnson, and George "Petey" Ellis Johnson Jr., his daughter Joan Marie Johnson, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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