Francys Johnson

Johnson stepped down from his post on July 23, 2017 and was immediately rumored as a possible challenger to Congressman Rick Allen (R-Augusta) in the 2018 midterms. During Johnson's tenure the Georgia NAACP filed 10 federal and state lawsuits addressing redistricting and voting rights. Johnson is credited with restoring the voting rights litigation prowess of NAACP in Georgia while attracting younger professionals and bridging the gaps in Georgia between millennial activists groups such as Black Lives Matter.

Long active in the NAACP in Georgia, in 2006 he was appointed as Southeast Region Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). After the national organization restructured and closed the regional offices, he served as Executive Director of the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP. On October 5, 2013, he was described as the civil rights organization's youngest President at the 71st Civil Rights Convention in Columbus, Georgia. Johnson is the Convener of Moral Monday Georgia Movement, a multi-issue, multiracial, nonpartisan coalition of organizations aimed at restoring positive morality to public discourse, policy, and politics.

On October 5, 2013, at the 71st annual NAACP Georgia State Convention and Civil Rights Conference in Columbus, Johnson was designated as the organization's next president. He becomes the group's first new president in eight years and the youngest in its history. Johnson succeeded outgoing state President Edward Dubose.

After the President and CEO Bruce S. Gordon resigned, the NAACP announced on June 1, 2007 it would restructure, closing the regional offices to emphasize roles of the state conferences. Johnson was appointed as Executive Director of the Georgia State Conference.

He later served as Legal Redress Director for the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP. During his tenure, the Georgia State Conference NAACP fought successfully in alliance with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) during the 2006 midterm elections to gain a federal court injunction that prevented voter identification legislation from being implemented. The legislation would have required voters without a driver's license to pay to get a new digital picture identification card. Prior to the legislation, 17 types of identification, such as copies of utility bills and other documents without picture identification, were acceptable. Opponents of the legislation argued that it was a violation of the Voting Rights Act and expressed concern that it might have the effect of reducing minority voter participation. Proponents of the legislation argued that the legislation was an attempt to reduce voter fraud. In the 2004 election, as many as 150,000 Georgians used alternative identification to vote.

In 2006, Johnson was appointed as the NAACP Southeast Region Director, a region representing over 60% of the membership of the organization. As regional director, Johnson worked to strengthen the NAACP's legal and political influence in the deep South through the establishment of "Citizen Review Boards". The boards were intended to address incidents of alleged police brutality in Georgia, Tennessee and Florida, to monitor the application of desegregation orders in Georgia, Florida, Mississippi and Alabama, and to mobilize local and regional support for affirmative action.

In March 2005, he chaired a roundtable discussion at the National Council for Black Studies annual conference. Educators from Dillard University, the Algebra Project, and the University of New Orleans discussed "Quality Education as Civil Rights." Johnson is in private practice with The Johnson Firm P.C. Attorneys and Counselors of Law in Statesboro, Georgia. He practices criminal and civil law in all State and Federal Courts in Georgia.

Johnson became an ordained minister in the Baptist Church in the late 1990s. He is the ninth pastor of Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Pembroke, Georgia and the Magnolia Missionary Baptist Church of Statesboro, Georgia. Before becoming director of the Southeast Region of the NAACP, he had been named an "Emerging Leader" by the National Religious Leadership Summit.