Editor-in-chief Charles S. Johnson wrote in the first issue of Opportunity, "Accurate and dependable facts can correct inaccurate and slanderous assertions that have gone unchallenged… and what is most important, to inculcate a disposition to see enough of interest and beauty of their own lives to rid themselves of the inferior feeling of being Negro".
The interracial character of the League's board was set from its first days; it was the template for Charles Johnson's approach to fostering interest, support, and occasion for African-American art and artists.
Wallace Thurman said, "The results of the Renaissance have been sad rather than satisfactory, in that critical standards have been ignored and the measure of achievement has been racial rather than literary" [2] Under Johnson's editorship the journal's circulation rose to 11,000 in 1928.
The May 1925 issue of Opportunity lists a number of prizewinners who went on to enjoy successful publishing careers: Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Sterling Brown, and Franklin Frazier.
[4] After 1928, when Johnson accepted the presidency of Fisk University, chief editors of the journal included Elmer Anderson Carter (October 1928–January 1945), Madeline L. Aldridge (January 1945–June 1947), and Dutton Ferguson (July 1947–January 1949).
Under Carter's editorship, the journal resumed its focus for publishing sociological studies of African Americans and continued with this purpose until it ceased publication in 1949.