In 1959, he played on the football team and was two English courses shy of earning his diploma. He was on the verge of completing one of those classes when his teacher accused him of plagiarizing his term paper, which matched another student’s almost word for word.

That student, Johnson says, had snatched his paper from his locker and copied it, but the teacher took him for the culprit. The teacher told him he could redo the paper, but pride got the better of him.

“It really was my downfall when my teacher told me that,” he said. “I didn’t handle it the way I should have, but I was so upset. I told my mom, ‘I’m not going back. I know what I did, and I’m going to stand up for myself.’

“It wasn’t the right decision. I thought about that moment for years and years and years. It may have been in the back of my mind, but it was always there.”

Johnson worked 20 years in construction and 34 years for a private family. He started a family and opened the modestly sized God’s House of Prayer near 27th Street North and Trenton Avenue. He’s preached there — without salary — since 1998.