Georgia Douglas Johnson was born in Atlanta to parents Laura Douglas and George Camp. Her mother was of African and Native American descent. And Johnson’s father was of African-American and English heritage. Much of Johnson's childhood was spent in Rome, Georgia. Johnson would receive her education in both Rome and Atlanta, where she excelled in reading, recitations and physical education. According to the unknown author for the “Georgia Douglas Johnson” Biography page for poetry foundation.org states that “She also taught herself to play the violin, which developed into a lifelong love of music that appears in her plays”(poetryfoundation.org).Johnson would use sacred music to set her performances apart from other plays of the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson would attend and graduate from Atlanta University's Normal School. In 1896 Johnson taught school in Marietta, Georgia. She left her teaching career to pursue her interest in music in 1902, attending Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. After completing her studies in Oberlin, Johnson returned to Atlanta, where she became assistant principal in a public school. Yet Johnson would still continue to write music from 1898 until 1959.
On September 28, 1903, Johnson married Henry Lincoln Johnson, an Atlanta lawyer and prominent Republican Party member. They had two sons, Henry Lincoln Johnson, Jr., and Peter Douglas Johnson. According to the unknown author for the “Georgia Douglas Johnson” Biography page for Columbia grangers.org states that “Johnson claimed her husband was not very supportive of her writing and preforming career, preferring her be to a home-maker instead” (coloumbiagrangers.org). Even though her husband often criticized her career as a writer, she published two poems dedicated to him, "The Heart of a Woman" in 1918 and "Bronze" in 1922. Johnson’s husband’s career as a lawyer forced them to live in Washington, away from the literary center in Harlem. Then suddenly Johnson’s husband died in 1925 and she was left to take care of their sons, who were teenagers at the time. Johnson lived in Washington for the last 50 years of her life. After her husband died in 1925, she struggled at first with some temporary jobs. As a gesture of appreciation for her husband's loyalty and service to the Republican Party, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Johnson as the Commissioner of Conciliation in the Department of Labor.
Johnson would began to host what became forty years of weekly Saturday Salons, for friends and authors, including Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Jessie Redmon Fauset, all major contributors to the New Negro Movement, which is better known today as the Harlem Renaissance. According to the unknown author for the “Georgia Douglas Johnson” Biography page for poets.org states that “Johnson called her home the Half Way House for friends traveling” (poets.org). Johnson thought of her house as a place where her friends could freely discuss politics and personal opinions. In addition to freely discussing personal and political views, travelers with no money and no place to stay would be welcome. Georgia Douglas Johnson died in Washington, D.C., in 1966.
In September 2009, it was announced that Johnson would be inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.
