Joyce Johnson (organist)

This article is about the Professor Emerita of music at Spelman College. For the American author of fiction, see Joyce Johnson (author).

Joyce Finch Johnson (born Joyce Finch in Bowling Green, KY) is Professor Emerita of music at Spelman College in Atlanta[1] where she taught for more than 50 years.[2] She has been the organist at Spelman since 1955. In April 1968, as slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. lay in state at Spelman's Sister's Chapel for 48 hours, it was Johnson who played the organ while 20,000 people filed past to pay their respects.[3] In July 2023, she played the organ at the college's memorial service for MLK's sister Christine King Farris.[4]

  1. ^ Music Faculty Spelman College
  2. ^ Celebrating The Sisters Of Spelman by Jeanette Valentine, Soul Of America
  3. ^ While MLK Was Lying In Repose At Spelman, Organist Joyce Johnson Played On by Kaitlyn Lewis, WABE Atlanta, April 4, 2018
  4. ^ Spelman college pays tribute to Christine King Farris The Atlanta Journal Constitution.