horace johnson jr. One Hillsborough native turned a basketball break into a lifetime of service By A nna-R hesa Versol a
or Horace H. Johnson Jr., the son of Hillsborough’s first Black mayor, basketball was more than just a game; it was a way to break barriers. Horace was born in 1954, the year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Many schools in the South, including North Carolina, were slow to desegregate, fueling conflicts during the Civil Rights era. Meanwhile, in Orange County, Horace grew up playing basketball in his backyard with all the other boys in his segregated neighborhood. He says his father knew the basketball goal would keep his five kids where he could see them. By the fall of 1969, Horace entered ninth grade at Orange High School. That academic year would complete the process of fully integrating schools in the county. Horace remembers his experience as the only Black student on his junior varsity basketball team at that time. The coach hesitated to put him in a game until a teammate’s injury forced a decision to pull Horace off the bench. “I started the fourth game, and for the first two minutes, they didn’t pass me the ball,” Horace says. “I remembered what Dad said, ‘When you get it, don’t hesitate.’” When the ball finally ended up in his hands, he scored eight consecutive times, leaving the coach and the crowd in disbelief. “I started getting a little more acceptance,” Horace recalls. “That same coach who didn’t believe in integration told the team in a meeting, ‘He’s part of the team. He’s integral to the team. I hear all these names y’all are calling him. I want it to stop, or you will be off this team.’”
After graduating, basketball scholarships opened doors for Horace. He earned an associate’s degree from Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk and attended Winston-Salem State University in Winston-Salem. In 1983, he accepted an aunt’s invitation to find work up north and, eventually, became a director of citywide programs for the New York City Housing Authority, where he worked for about 20 years. “I ran all five boroughs,” he says. During Rudy Giuliani’s tenure as mayor from 1994-2001, Horace’s work allowed him to meet local and international celebrities who visited the urban projects. He pulls out a photo of himself with civil rights advocate Cecilia Marshall, the second wife of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Another photo shows him standing next to Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, a nonprofit crime-prevention organization in New York City. And, Horace shared his memory of shaking hands with Nelson Mandela, among others. “We gained a lot of notoriety having worked with kids in the projects – Biggie [Smalls], Tupac [Shakur], all those kids with young Jay-Z,” Horace says. He left the city in 2003 and became a Century 21 real estate agent in New Jersey. Horace returned to Hillsborough in 2008 and later worked at Duke University for two five-year stretches, retiring in 2023. These days, Horace aims to make a difference in his hometown. He remains active with the Orange County Partnership for Young Children, The Preservation Fund of Hillsborough, Orange County Justice United, Piney Grove Missionary Baptist Church and the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough. Despite an unsuccessful primary bid in 2024 for elected office to the Orange County Board of Commissioners, he says there are many other ways to succeed. “Basketball taught me that there’s no ‘I’ in team,” Horace says. “If you want to be successful, then contribute to the team. When your turn comes, be ready. … I’m not concerned about the title; being a member of a team of people trying to make things better for others is a team win. That’s all that really matters. I get my joy from helping people.” January/February 2026
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