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In the wake of the Civil War, institutionalized slavery morphed into “Jim Crow” laws, a series of municipal rulings whose sole purpose was to disenfranchise blacks throughout the South. But Johnson was born in Galveston, Texas, in 1878, an active seaport that naturally functioned, for commercial purposes, as an international zone. Under these utilitarian circumstances, Galveston found itself both racially mixed and relatively tolerant. Compared to growing up in Mississippi or South Carolina, childhood in Galveston seemed almost idyllic. “No one,” Johnson said, “ever told me that white men were superior to me.”

Whether Johnson consciously took on the role of racial revolutionary or not, his actions required extraordinary courage. He stood out, virtually alone, on the bleak horizon of pre–civil rights America, a symbol of resistance to many black Americans. “I always take a chance on my pleasures,” he once said.

Sentenced to 366 days in prison for his reckless disregard of all that Jim Crow prohibited, Johnson fled America on June 24, 1913, an outlaw on the run certainly, but with his overriding sense of joie de vivre still intact. He toured England, Argentina, France, Germany, Barbados, Spain—all without a Baedeker at hand.