David A.G. Johnson Jr. (WRC ‘73) has long drawn inspiration from history. When he looks to the past, he sees beacons that guide Case Western Reserve students on paths of service and social justice. As the chair of the Alumni Association of Case Western Reserve University’s oral history committee, Johnson was the catalyst behind the creation of the David A.G. Johnson, Jr. - Janie White Williams Haywood-John Sykes Fayette Endowed Scholarship Fund.
A student civil rights activist in the 1960s and 1970s, Johnson connects with the legacy of John Sykes Fayette, an abolitionist leader and the first Black alumnus of Western Reserve College.
Johnson proposed a scholarship in honor of the antislavery activist and the commissioning of a portrait of Fayette to hang alongside depictions of other historic alumni in Harcourt House, Case Western Reserve’s presidential residence. Johnson unveiled the portrait at a reception honoring the class of 1973.
Since the unveiling, Johnson made a gift of $25,000 to establish the fund and collaborated with the university to set the scholarship in motion. The fund is partially named in honor of Johnson’s late mother, who instilled in him an awareness of the responsibilities that come with an education.
It was important to Johnson to honor his family’s commitment to higher education while recognizing Fayette’s legacy. Johnson points to a transformative Case Western Reserve study-abroad experience at Lancaster University in Lancaster, Lancashire, England, that allowed him to study the life of his great-great grandmother— a nurse who had come to London from Richmond, Virginia, to work in a smallpox hospital. Johnson also finds significant meaning in the story of his great grandfather, an alumnus of Storer College, a former historically Black college in Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
It is Johnson’s hope that the scholarship fund will support undergraduate students with a visceral sense of social justice, and that it will provide opportunities for students from underrepresented minority groups, to the extent permitted by law.
He hopes recipients will also take an interest in the inspiration, stories and people behind the gift and that the fund will serve as “a charge to recipients to pursue social justice in their lives, but to also be a catalyst for their thinking about giving back in some way,” Johnson said. “And that’s what I call the ‘triple T’ in terms of time, talent and treasure.”
Johnson also hopes for the scholarship to play a role in informing the world of what kind of institution Case Western Reserve has been. “This was an abolitionist institution. I think that it also would be a balm for African-American students who are considering applying to the university because if they see that there was somebody who looked like them [at the university] in 1832, that would send a very powerful message.”
“I would call this living witness to the past,” Johnson said.