- Hi, I'm Hermene Hartman with "N'DIGO STUDIO," and today we have a very special guest.

He's exceptional, an entrepreneur, a legend, a business tycoon.

Today, Mr. Johnson is a vibrant 97 years young, and he's put it all on paper, "Afro Sheen: How I Revolutionized an Industry from Soul Train to Wall Street."

Now what does that mean?

We're gonna talk to him.

We're gonna talk about how he built his business, and how he revolutionized hair care in America and the world.

(drum rolling) - [Announcer] Now comes Gentle-Treatment, the ultimate relaxer.

♪ The relaxer called Gentle-Treatment ♪ The first no-lye relaxer that conditions while relaxing.

(bright music) ♪ You get twirl, swirl ♪ Curlier curls ♪ with Classy Curl - It's in a class by itself.

- [Jerry] This is Jerry Butler for Ultra Sheen, and Ultra Sheen believes that every woman can be unforgettable.

That's why they make cosmetics to do for your hair what love does for your heart.

- I don't wanna relaxer with sodium hydroxide lye, and I don't wanna relaxer without a built-in conditioner.

I do want a relaxer that repairs flyaway fibers and split ends while it relaxes.

- This is a story of Chicago.

This is a story from the South Side of Chicago.

This is an American business story.

He started with $250.

How'd he get the loan?

They wouldn't loan him the money.

He had to say, "I'm gonna take my wife on vacation."

And from that, he built a dynasty, a fortune, and changed the culture in America for Black women in hair care.

He started his business, but he really started a whole industry.

Mostly in the coast.

You.

For more information on this show, follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Funding for this program was provided by Illinois State Representative LaShawn Ford.

The Chicago Community Trust.

Sin City Studios.

Lamborghini.

Chicago.

Gold Coast and Downers Grove.

Blue Cross Blue shield of Illinois.

CommonWealth Edison And the Illinios Health Plan Meet Mr. George Johnson.

(George chuckling) Mr. Johnson, thank you, thank you, thank you for being with us and letting us share your story with the world.

- I'm proud to be here with you.

- Good.

So, Mr. Johnson, let's start in the beginning.

You worked for a businessman, an entrepreneur.

- Yes.

- Your mentor?

- Yes.

- S.B.

Fuller.

- Yes.

- Tell us how you worked for S.B.

Fuller.

He was one of the wealthiest Black men in America at the time.

- That's true.

- And what your relationship was as you worked as a chemical compounder in a cosmetic company.

- I left school in 11th grade, and went to work for Mr. S.B.

Fuller in 1944.

Mr. Fuller, as you said, was one of the richest men in Chicago and probably in the United States.

He was a very devout man, very religious, and very, very smart.

He encouraged me to learn about my spirituality.

I'd already had a good foundation.

I got it from the Catholic school when I started school.

I paid attention to him, I listened to him, I watched him, and over 10 years I learned a lot.

It just so happened one day I was on my way to my second job, and I got on the elevator on the fifth floor, and the elevator stopped on the third floor.

And I did something I never ever thought I would ever do and had never done.

The man got on the elevator.

He looked so downhearted.

I said, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

And he told me what he came to Fuller Products for, that he thought that it was a Black company, and he could get Mr. Fuller to make him a better product.

He was a barber.

He owned the House of Nelson on 64th and Cottage Grove.

I said to him, "I don't know what you're talking about.

I don't know what this is all about, but if you have a card, gimme your card.

And if I can't, I'll come by though your shop and maybe I can help you."

- Now this is a time when men were wearing what was known then as processes.

- Right.

- That's like Duke Ellington.

- Yeah.

- And Jackie Wilson.

- And Nat Cole.

- Nat Cole.

- Right.

Sammy Davis.

- And Sammy Davis, and that was the hairstyle of the day.

- Yeah, these were the people that really promoted it, the stars, the entertainers, and all of 'em went to his shop.

- Okay, so they came in for that style?

- Whenever they were in Chicago, they always went to his shop.

I went home that night, and I put his card in my top dresser drawer.

I didn't see the card again for two months.

And one day on a Saturday, I went in the drawer.

The card came up in my hand and I remembered that I met this guy and that I was gonna, told him I was gonna come and see if I could help him and see what he was doing.

So I didn't have anything to do that morning.

I told Joan, my wife, that I'm going over on 64th and Cottage Grove and see what's going on with this guy I met on the elevator, and I did that.

When I walked in the door, I was shocked.

It was a busy, busy place.

Everybody that was in their shop were busy or standing.

I looked at what they were doing.

I saw what he had.

It was a separated product, and it was in three layers: water on the bottom, the solids in the middle, and oil on the top.

And I told him, I said, "Listen, this shouldn't be a, this shouldn't be a this shouldn't be a big job.

It just this stuff needs to be emulsified.

And he said, "Can you emulsify it?"

I said, "I would think so."

- This is at a time when men were putting this product on their hair, but it was burning?

- Yes.

- Okay, and that's what he was trying to fix, right?

- Right.

- Okay.

- And as I observed the other barbers and the guys that was in his chair, it was a comedy, 'cause after they started combing the hair, you'd hear the customer say, "Come, on baby, Come, on baby.

I mean, we got to go.

We got to go."

And, I mean, I understood what it was.

- And what that meant was, "You gotta wash this out."

- Yes.

- Okay, quick and in a hurry.

- And that's what they did.

They would swing a barber chair around and dump the guy in the shampoo bowl and right away put the water on his scalp, on his hair, and wash it out.

- Okay, so that was the process, and that's what you fixed?

- Well, yeah, so what I did, I asked him to gimme a little bit of it, and I'll take it to the lab, and if there's anything else out here that's competing with it, let me know.

Tell me what it is.

And he told me about two or three products.

I said, "Well, listen, I'd like to find them and buy 'em, but I don't have any money."

So he gave me the money to buy 'em.

And I took what he gave me and then what I bought at other place, took it in the lab.

- And you changed the product?

- Yeah.

- You changed his products.

- With the help of a genius.

And we had hired, Mr. Fuller had hired a genius, I think in 1949.

I'm talking about 1953.

So this genius I called Doc Martini.

Doc and I sat down with him and explained to him what was going on.

And I told him, "I know we can emulsify this," 'cause I dealt with emulsifiers.

For 10 years almost I've been dealing with emulsifies.

And I said, we gotta find the right emulsifier to emulsify this product.

Now I hadn't tested it until we got in the lab.

The pH of that product was about 15, and every emulsifying agent that we found and tried couldn't accommodate it.

It couldn't stand.

It separated within a week.

- Ah, okay, so you're looking for shelf life, too?

- I was looking for, gotta have shelf life.

- Okay.

Okay.

- And anyway, make a long story short, for months we did that, and we never found one in the US that could emulsify that product.

Martini was German.

He contacted some of his colleagues in Germany, asked them to send him some, send him... And he explained that this product had a high alkalinity level, and we had to accommodate that.

And they started sending us some samples of emulsifiers.

In a few months, we found the right one, And that is how I got started in the business.

- Now you got started in the business, and you start selling to other barbers.

Is that right?

- Yeah, I did.

Mm-hmm.

- So now, how did you go from having a male product and taking this in for women in the beauty salons?

- Well, it didn't go right away.

- Okay.

how many years?

- This is 1953.

The development of the product when interest in the 54.

- Okay.

- And I think we found the right emulsifier, and Orville Nelson, the man that was in the elevator.

- Mm-hmm, who owned the Nelson Barbershop.

- He had been using the product and guiding us, it worked well, it didn't work well, and one day he said, "This is it.

Don't move, don't change anything.

This is it."

And I never thought about going in business, but when he said, "This is it," I said, "This should be marketed.

We should market this."

And he asked me how much it would it take.

I knew I could borrow $250, and because I knew I could get $250 for my share, I said "$500," and he wrote me a check for $500.

And he wrote me a check for $500.

And the next day, the next day I went to the loan company I'd been borrowing money from.

I went in there on cloud nine and telling them, "I'm about to get out of a property.

I've got something that's really gonna sell, and I'm gonna build a big business, And, all I need is $250.

- You saw that dream.

You had a vision.

- And he sat in his chair and he looked back, and he put his hands through his hair.

- This is a white man?

- This is a white man.

And he said, "I'm gonna do you a favor."

He said, "I'm not gonna give you this money because if I give you this money, your boss is gonna find out that you're in the same business he's in, and he's gonna fire you, and you won't be able to pay your money back."

- $500?

- I asked for $200, 250.

But if I ask for 200, that 250.

So I left out of that shop dejected and that loan company dejected.

I got a half a block away, and I began to think, and I said, "This is just a branch of this company, and credit has to be centrally approved somewhere."

And with all this, the branches they had, I'm gonna go to another branch, and I did.

And I told that loan officer there that I had a vacation coming, and I wanted to take my wife to California, and I needed $250 for the trip.

In 20 minutes I had a check.

- So, Mr. Johnson, how did you get into the beauty salons, moving the product for men into women?

- To get to a barbershop, I usually pass two beauty salons, which meant there was a lot more beauty salons than there were barbershops.

And the first thing I found out when I started investigating was that the hair was contaminated with smoke.

- [Hermene] Because the women were pressing their hair with a straightening comb.

- But to straighten hair, women were using a hot comb and grease.

- And so, and the object in the beauty salon was to straighten the hair.

- [George] They straightened the hair with the Madam C. J. Walker method.

- Which was the hot comb.

- Hot comb and grease, and the grease is what produced the smoke.

And I realized that if we eliminated a lot of that smoke, it would be better for the hairdressers.

I also realized that the hot comb, the heat, even though it straightened the hair, they pulled it straight, it damaged the hair.

And I realized that, you know, and eventually it was going to be a problem.

So the first product that we developed, we called it Creme Satin Press, and it was a revolutionary product.

- What made it revolutionary?

- Because you didn't have to use as much heat, and the product nourished the hair and made the hair stronger, and they could style it better.

With the grease, the hair didn't keep a style very long.

It was heavy.

The hair was heavy.

With what we produced, the hair, it was light, it was light and and instead of having smoke, it had a little steam.

- Okay, so you created a better product.

- A better product.

And that was the first one.

- All right, so now we're in the beauty shops.

- That was the first one, and that was in 1957.

- But now we are in the beauty shops.

With my product.

People start creating different products.

They were producing my product to the best they could.

They bootlegging?

Yeah, it was bootlegging.

Okay.

But now we're in the beauty shops.

How did you expand your business?

How did you grow?

So you're on the South Side of Chicago, but you're growing your business.

How'd you do that?

- Well, it certainly began to grow when we started in the haircare with women, with hairdressers.

To produce a relaxer... That was the name.

- Which is now known as a perm, chemical relaxer.

- No, it's still known as a relaxer.

- As a relaxer, okay.

- To do that, we reduced the alkalinity of the Ultra Wave Hair Culture.

That was the original product that made it okay for hairdressers.

And they can use that product without damaging the hair and without losing hair.

- Okay, so now we got a chemical product that we can put on women in the beauty salons to straighten the hair.

- Right.

- Without the heat.

- Right, and the good thing about it, with the relaxer, the hair wouldn't go back, like, or revert.

- It was lasting.

- Right.

You know, with the hot comb and the grease, if that you get out in humidity or get out in rain, if the rain hit the hair, it would revert.

- Okay, so- - Or the humidity, enough of humidity would make it revert.

The relaxed hair would not revert.

- All right, so let's get off the South Side of Chicago and get into national marketing.

When did you do that?

How did you do that?

Well, we were we already had a base, but we had all the Midwest okay.

With our men's product.

And and so we had distributors already because we had the men's brand.

So distribution system is in place.

But I have to tell you, I, I let the, the cocktail writers do what they wanted to do, and I did what I wanted to do.

We, the cocktail writers were trying to sell products and not teach people how to use a chemical product like that, which they needed to do and didn't do.

So you taught the beauticians how to use the chemical.

And my partner became a competitor.

So you had a partner and he started doing some on his off partner.

Remember when I said I started it was $500?

Yeah, he gave me that would be 250.

Right?

Okay.

Hey, we were partners.

He was not trustworthy.

He was not a good guy.

And he didn't do what he was supposed to do.

Bad partner.

Right.

And I got rid of him.

And on June 15th of 1950.

Four, I want to get out of the Midwest into national markets, New York, L.A., Washington.

How did you was that to the distributors?

Yes.

Okay.

I didn't just try to sell private.

I wouldn't let people buy when I made when we made the when Johnson Products made that that relaxer, we we would not let anybody just buy it.

We set up clinics and hairdressers that came to our clinics.

We'd get a certificate and those are the people that could buy our products.

After we taught them how to use it properly and safely.

I just paid no attention to what the competitors were doing, and and believe me, that was the right method, right?

Because because we tell people how to use our product, they had success using it.

And the reputation of our company grew.

And it was in fact, it blossomed.

And and, the competitors thought I was really, thought I was stupid.

They said that I was fattening frogs for snakes because I'm teaching people who could use their product to.

I'm teaching them how to use their product.

You want them to do it right.

You don't.

Want it.

But when we put our label on it, it had to be.

It had to be, right.

And and as a result, that started in 1990 and 1960, we started the relaxer business.

And in 1964 we had 45% of the of the hairdresser market, 45%.

- Okay, are you on the shelves in stores?

- No.

- Not yet?

- Just only in beauty salons.

- Only beauty salons.

Exclusively for professionals.

- Only in beauty salons.

Right.

- Okay, when did you go into salons where just the average woman could buy off the shelf at a drugstore?

- We never put the relaxer for women on the drugstore.

- Not the professional product?

- No.

- Okay.

- Now, actually, let me put it that not at the beginning.

It took several years before we made a kit.

- Ah.

- A relaxer kit.

- Okay.

- We waited until enough people learned how to use it, that it was being done correctly.

- So what you changed, Mr. Johnson, this is what I wanna get to.

You changed the way Black women looked, hairstyles, and how they did their hair, how hair was done.

That's really the revolution that you brought forth.

- That's true.

- All right, now, 1964, October 19th, something devastating happened.

You're in New York doing international business.

You get a phone call to tell you that your business is in crisis because the building has burned down.

What'd you do?

- Well, I was in the office, as you said, talking to an international representative to see what they could do in representing our products in Europe.

And the secretary of this gentleman burst in the room and told there was an emergency call.

And she gave me the phone, and it was Joan on the phone.

- Your wife, Joan.

- Joan.

Right.

And Joan told me that Robert had just called, my brother Robert had just called, and that flames had been licking the roof for the last 30 minutes.

And I just got up, and I went down the elevator, got into a yellow cab, went straight to the airport and caught the first plane to Chicago.

And when I got to Chicago, my car was at the airport, and I drove straight to Johnson Products at 5831 South Green.

And there was five, I think it was five of, (clears throat) fire trucks there, but the flame was out.

- So the building burned.

- The building burned.

- You're out of business for all practical purposes.

- Yeah, and one of my employees lost his life.

- Lost his life.

- Lost his life, okay.

What did you do?

That's devastating.

Well, what did you chalk?

I was in shock.

I when I went to bed that night.

I don't know how I slept, but I slept some night somehow.

And, the phone book me up in the morning, and, it was Mr. Fogler on the phone, and Mr. Fuller said, come on down to my office and let's talk.

So I, I got up and I was still in a daze, and I have no idea how I made it to his office, but I drove down to his office and, walked into his office, and he he recited something from job, and I sat down, half listening, and he just then he said to me that I'm not doing as well as I used to do.

We're not as busy as we used to be, and there's a lot of space in this building.

And if you can use anything in this building, bring your inventory, bring your, bring your, you know, your, your employees and, and use any machines that we can that we have that you can use, bring some of the machinery that you that that might survive the fire and bring your folks down.

He welcomed you by giving you a home and say, really saved your business there.

Okay, okay.

So now we're growing by leaps and bounds, doing very, very well around the country.

This is a national business about approaching internationalism.

And you become very determined that you're going to build your own building where offices and factory can be, which we know today was at 85, 22 South Lafayette.

Tell us how that came about.

Well, when we got everything going at full products.

And let me just tell you that we were able to start shipping again ten days after we went into put into full products.

But I immediately sought a, a temporary location, because I needed to get my people out of there.

I found a sufficient location and equipped it so that we could operate on our own.

What?

To be independent.

7200 South Chicago Avenue.

Okay.

And then when I got that going, I started looking for a permanent place.

And I had seen this property on the Danbury Expressway at 8580 fifth and Lafayette, and I found out who owned it.

And it turned out that the guy that owned it was president of the of the bank that I banked in, that that I asked for a business loan and they laughed me out of the bank.

And I took my money out of that bank that that same day they left me out and put it in another bank.

But this guy owned this property.

So I told him I'd like to buy two acres of that property.

And, this this property was stacked up with concrete and and tarmac.

It was a garbage dump.

It was a dump that the city was using.

When they when they, you know, broke up, sidewalks and streets, we agreed on a price for two acres.

And, and I told him if I were you, I'd take this money.

I'm paying you.

I'm paying you for these two acres.

And I would have.

I get all the rest of that property.

It was nine acres left.

It was 11 acres altogether.

Nine acres left, as I do get.

Excavate that property down to the ground, to the to the ground level.

And then this will be salable.

And he did.

He took my money and did that.

And, anyway, that was that was how I got the land.

Immediately I started with the architect and and then we got all that done and started building the fire.

Wasn't on, October 19th of 1965, okay.

No, 1964.

And we started building in 65 and the building was finished in, in September of 66.

So it took you a year to build the building a little.

Over a year.

And it was magnificent.

And so now you open up.

And so now your national business is growing.

Business is doing well.

Employees are happy when colors takes you to see something that was going on in Chicago and showed you something where kids were dancing in a little studio called Soul Train with Don Cornelius.

What happened then?

I've only I've only had one mentor during my career.

It seems like a whole lot of folks that helped me do it, I was trying to do.

But there was only one man that helped me do what I was trying to do.

And that's the man you ran into tonight, Mr. Georgie Johnson.

He.

He took my hand.

He was advised many times.

Mr. Johnson, you got to get out of that soul train.

And George said, no, I'm no.

Stay with it.

And that's, And we were still working 35 years later.

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Funding for this program was provided by Illinois Student Assistance Commission, the Chicago Community Trust, Sin City Studios, Lamborghini Chicago, Gold Coast and Downers Grove, Blue Cross, Blue Shield of Illinois, Commonwealth Edison, and the Illinois Health Plan.

N'digo Studio.