ABSTRACT
Charles S, Johnson (1893-1956) was active from the end of the First World War in Chicago race-relations bodies and was director of research and then founding editor of its magazine, Opportunity (1923-29), As professor of sociology at Fisk from 1928 onwards and member of various national and international committees on social and racial issues, Johnson was a major analyst of black life in the 1920s and 1930s. A fundamental precept of his social analysis was that it was first necessary to see the world through his subjects' eyes before drawing conclusions. This makes his description of a black church in the rural South in the early 1930s particularly valuable.
