Oakley Calvin Johnson was born on March 24, 1890, in a log cabin on a farm near the hamlet of Jarvis Centre, Michigan, in Arenac County.

His father, Calvin Henry Johnson, was born in 1858 near Chateaugay, New York, and died of Addison's disease in 1904 at the age of 46, when Oakley was just 14.

Midway through the school year, Johnson was pulled right from a classroom by representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice, who took him away to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to interrogate him about his nationality and the reason he had contributed money to the legal defense fund established to aid members of the Industrial Workers of the World undergoing prosecution.

Johnson refused to be bullied and the next day he called a school assembly at which he told the whole story, writing up the same for publication in the local newspaper.

In June, on the day before graduation, an out-of-town mob gathered at the school house to get me, but my students spirited me and my young wife out the back way, where farmers in automobiles rescued us and gave us hospitality for the night.

The next day Professor Hoyt of Ypsilanti gave the graduating address, and expressed regret, I was told, that the mob on the preceding night had to go home empty handed.

[10] While at Michigan, Johnson was the faculty advisor to the Negro-Caucasian Club, a student organization which aimed to promote interracial understanding through common activities.

[11] The Negro-Caucasian sponsored a series of speakers on campus who discussed relevant topics in public lectures and gave black and white students an opportunity to meet and socialize.

In the fall of 1928, the new Dr. Johnson left Michigan in favor of a position as an Assistant Professor of English at Long Island University, where he remained until 1930.

[6] After that date, Johnson continued to teach as a tutor, "confining himself to giving private lessons to those with a foreign background who wish to study the English language," as he himself noted.