George E. Johnson, who founded Johnson Products Company, and along with it a new universe of hair care products tailored to Black consumers, died Monday morning.He died from natural causes at his Downtown Chicago condo, said his son John Edward Johnson. He was 99."I think his legacy as a businessman and philanthropist speaks for itself," his son said.Mr. Johnson founded the company in 1954 and turned it into a multimillion dollar business and a beacon of Black accomplishment. In 1971 it became the first Black-owned company to trade on the American Stock Exchange.His company, headquartered at 8522 S. Lafayette Ave., manufactured product lines including Ultra Sheen, Classy Curl, Curly Perm and Black Tie men’s cologne.He pioneered marketing techniques to reach Black audiences, which included sponsoring the television show "Soul Train."Mr. Johnson built a dream home not far from his office in the Chatham neighborhood. He later moved with his family to north suburban Glencoe.He owned homes in Paris and Jamaica, as well as yachts and cattle ranches in Mississippi.Mr. Johnson had humble beginnings. In 1929, his mother, Priscilla Johnson Howard, moved from Mississippi to Chicago with three young sons when she was 18. Mr. Johnson was 2 at the time and soon proved himself a worker with gigs ranging from shining shoes and delivering papers to waiting tables and collecting milk bottles.A high school dropout, Mr. Johnson was 17 when he went to work at Fuller Products, a Black-owned cosmetics firm where he was in sales before joining the company's laboratory staff.When Fuller Products turned down a pitch from Chicago barber Orville Nelson, who wanted to make a better hair straightener, Mr. Johnson saw opportunity and stepped in.During his off hours, he worked with a colleague, chemist Herbert Martini, to develop a new product that wouldn’t burn scalps as it straightened hair.Johnson attempted to take out a $250 business loan to get his operation off the ground but was rejected. So he went to a different branch of the same bank and told the white loan officer a phony story: He needed the money to take his wife on a vacation to California."I knew this request wouldn't rattle his belief that he was superior to me. Nor would it challenge his stereotypes of Black men as subservient or unintelligent," Mr. Johnson said in his 2025 memoir “Afro Sheen: How I Revolutionized an Industry with the Golden Rule, from 'Soul Train’ to Wall Street.”"Thirty minutes later, I walked out with a check in my hand," he said in the memoir.The money helped in developing his new product, Ultra Wave, which set the trajectory for his company's future.By 1974 the Johnson Products was racking up annual sales of more than $31 million."Anyone given the same opportunities can get ahead," Mr. Johnson told the Chicago Sun-Times in 1979. "You just need the same mental attitude and motivation. My motivation was that I was absolutely poor, working two jobs at 15 hours a day. I wanted a better future than that."His philanthropic efforts included donating millions to help minority students go to college.Mr. Johnson resigned as chairman and CEO in 1988 as part of a divorce settlement with his former wife, Joan, who took a controlling stake in the company as part of the deal. The two later remarried. Joan died in 2019, John Edward Johnson said.He found love again late in life and married Madeline Murphy Rabb.Mr. Johnson, a longtime resident of Water Tower Place, a high-rise condo building in the Gold Coast, recalled in his memoir how his company, with its headquarters just off the Dan Ryan Expressway, was a source of Black empowerment.The front plaza featured an 11-foot sculpture by Black artist Richard Hunt. Several miniature red brick pyramids that evoked the accomplishments of ancient Egypt stood nearby.The company gave tours to the public and regularly received visitors ranging from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Muhammad Ali."On any given day you could walk the halls and come across a Black woman in a white chemist's smock, a Southeast Asian manager, or a young salesman sporting a suit and an afro," he said in his memoir.In 1993, Miami-based Ivax Corp., a pharmaceutical firm, bought Johnson Products. The company and its products changed hands several times before a multiracial group of investors bought Johnson Afrosheen Products Company in 2009 from Procter Gamble, reestablishing it as a Black-owned company. "But like many Black businesses, they eventually ran out of money," Johnson said in his memoir.The South Side site that housed Johnson Products is now home to a charter school — Perspectives Leadership Academy. In addition to his wife Madeline and son John, Mr. Johnson is survived by his sons Eric George Johnson and George "Petey" Ellis Johnson Jr.; his daughter, Joan Marie Johnson; and several grandchildren.Contributing: Erica Thompson Related Ahead of his 98th birthday, George E. Johnson reflects on trailblazing career in hair care ...read more read less