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John B. Johnson, Jr. was born in 1908 in Bessemer, Alabama, and became one of the first African American physicians to become department chairman of the Howard University Medical College. Dr. Johnson was also a pioneer in using angiocardiography and cardiac catheterization as diagnostic tools. He was also part of a successful effort in 1954 to bring equal opportunity to physicians in Washington, D.C., becoming one of two African American physicians appointed to Georgetown University Hospital's staff.

Dr. Johnson went to high school at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, and then attended Oberlin College in Ohio, where he earned his degree in 1931. He then went Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and earned his M.D. in 1935.

After serving his internship at Cleveland City Hospital, Dr. Johnson spent his career at Howard University starting in 1936. Dr. Johnson ended his career as the director of its Division of Cardiology. Dr. Johnson also studied hypertension and its disproportionate effects on African Americans. As an educator, Johnson was described as an excellent teacher with infectious energy and enthusiasm whose lectures were both dramatic and exciting, as well as an individual who drove himself hard. He received many awards and, after his retirement, the Howard University College of Medicine voted unanimously to name a chair after him, the John Beauregard Johnson Professor of Medicine.

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