Julius Johnson is running for Georgia State Senate seat/district 120. Earlier in March, Johnson qualified as a Democratic candidate for the seat. He faces no challengers in his party for the June 9 General Primary Elections, Nonpartisan General Election, and Special Elections, but will be running against either incumbent Larry Walker (R-20) or Republican candidate Franklin E. Wetmore for the November 3 General Election.
Johnson’s family roots date back to the early 1800s in Houston County on his maternal side. It was his great-great-grandmother Mariah who arrived from South Carolina with the family of Henry Wimberly to help manage the newly acquired 2,000 acres of land, which later became the Wimberly plantation on Wimberly Road in Houston County.
Johnson is a real estate investor and co-founder of Johnson Development LLC, a Defense contracting company offering Engineering, cyber security, and training to federal, state and local government. He is currently completing his doctorate in psychology at Howard University in Washington, DC, and Johnson holds a masters degree from Yale University and completed his undergraduate studies at St. Lawrence University.
Johnson has served as an analyst with the Library of Congress, the regional coordinator for the Middle East and East Africa, a $300 million school feeding initiative with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and a governance specialist in Afghanistan. He currently serves as the executive alumni council of St. Lawrence University.
“My mother (Rosa) was born and raised here in Houston County, but she later migrated north to New York,” Johnson said. “I was actually brought up between New York and Houston County. When I was a little boy, my mother would send me and my sisters to the family farm in Houston County where we spent long summer days riding on the back of my grandfather’s pickup truck, picking peas and fishing in local creeks. It was these memories that shaped my decision to return to Georgia after mother decided to bury dad in the old family’s cemetery at Haynesville Baptist Church. I wanted to come back home to make a difference.”
Johnson then established the Newberry Foundation, www.Newberryfoundation.org, based in Hawkinsville, Georgia, a nonprofit organization committed to preserving history, building community and providing education. The foundation runs Annie Lee’s African American Heritage Center and the Plough & Pew Reading Room and Event Center. The Reading Room has the largest collection of books on the Black experience in Middle Georgia.
Johnson said through his outreach work with government and communities, he has become very familiar with what it takes to lead and bring people together, to get things done.
“I want to take my experiences and offer them to the citizens of this area. I believe that through my knowledge, my skills, my ability and travels, I bring a global perspective with a real appreciation of local culture,” Johnson said. “At this time in our country—particularly here in the south—we need fresh leadership. We need imaginative, creative, innovated thinking, and we need fresh blood. I think that Georgia is a state of the future.”
Johnson further stated, “I was here during the 1996 [Summer] Olympics and saw the world come to Georgia. I was hoping that momentum would continue, but we have particular problems and challenges here in this part of Georgia. We have to have leadership that can reach across the lines and work with all parties—leaders that understand where the people are. We have tremendous poverty and drug problems, etc. We need a person that’s not divisive. I have looked at the proposed cuts for the upcoming budget. Some are over $22 million in education and childcare, $40 million in health care and much more in other areas. I’m just saying to myself that these cuts are going to have a profound impact on our community, and we have to figure out how to adjust accordingly and bring the best out of our local citizens.”
Johnson went to say that if elected, he wants the direction and guidance of his position to come from the citizens he will represent in the district.
“I am prepared to start on day one listening, learning, and engaging the community,” Johnson said. “I’ve already started that and shaping legislation accordingly. I also want to bring our community together through outreach efforts, internships for our young people, bringing people across the aisle; Democrats and Republicans under one tent, begin to really operate as one community and one state. Those are two things that I plan to bring immediately.”
To keep up-to-date with Johnson’s campaign, go online to www.juliusforsenate.com.
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