Dr. Theodore Johnson was born in Atlanta, GA. He was educated at Lincoln and Howard Universities, completed his advance study at New York, Buffalo, and Harvard Universities, his internship at Freedman's Hospital in Washington, D.C. In the mid-1940s, when the city's hospital would not admit black women to deliver their children, forcing them to travel to Washington or Baltimore, Dr. Johnson opened a maternity clinic at Northwest and Carroll streets. He also had a pharmacy on Calvert Street that served the black community. As president of the Anne Arundel Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1959 to 1962, Dr. Johnson worked for the desegregation of restaurants and hotels in Annapolis and for the promotion of African-American police officers.