Hannibal B. Johnson

(1959 - Present)

Profession: Attorney, Author, Consultant

Hometown: Tulsa

Inducted: 2021

Hannibal B. Johnson encourages Oklahomans to come together across boundaries and differences to understand and value one another. Combining grace, kindness, insight, and wisdom with the power of well-chosen words, he is an incomparable speaker, author, advocate, historian, attorney, and educator. Originally from Fort Smith, Arkansas, Johnson settled in Tulsa after graduating from the University of Arkansas and Harvard Law School.

His publications include ten books and one play about African American life and culture in the region with a particular focus on truth telling and reconciliation for Tulsa's historic Greenwood District. He has chronicled the rise of the downtown area known as Black Wall Street and its entrepreneurs, its destruction by white mobs during the 1921 race massacre, and the community's arduous reconstruction against all odds.

Johnson has served with the Metropolitan Urban League, Rotary Club, Leadership Tulsa, Oklahoma Department of Libraries, Oklahoma Advisory Council to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and the 400 Years of African American History Commission. A proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, he serves as a humble beacon of community leadership. The author's positive character is witnessed in his words to Cameron University students, "May God bless you with the foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in the world so that you will do the things that others tell you cannot be done."