[1][2] Born in 1900 in Hylas in Goochland County's Dover District to the former Lelia Sattherwhite and her long-lived farmer husband Charles Evander Johnson (1849–1948).

When registering for the draft in 1940 (during World War II), this Johnson listed his employer as the Virginia Department of Education, although the census form specified that his job as involving vocational rehabilitation.

By 1950, after leaving the legislature as described below, Johnson described his job as public relations for the Medical Society of Virginia, and his obituary the next year listed his title as executive secretary/treasurer.

[6][1] Goochland County voters, together with those from nearby Louisa and Fluvanna Counties, first elected Johnson to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1942, and re-elected him to that part-time position until 1947, when he was succeeded by fellow Democrat Harold H. Purcell, a lawyer recently returned from wartime service and who would serve in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly before becoming a judge.

[7] Johnson died at a Richmond hospital in 1951, at the beginning of Virginia's Massive Resistance crisis, survived by his widow, five sisters and three brothers, and was buried at Berea Baptist Church in Hanover County.