George E. Johnson, the pioneering Chicago entrepreneur whose eponymous company transformed Black hair care in the U.S. with brands including Afro Sheen, Ultra Wave and Classy Curl, died on Monday at age 99, according to news media reports.
Johnson, who was born in a sharecropper’s shack in Mississippi and moved to Chicago with his mother at age 2, died at his downtown Chicago condo of natural causes, the Chicago Sun-Times reported, citing his son, John Edward Johnson.
The New York Times, citing his second wife, Madeline Murphy Rabb, reported that Johnson died of a respiratory illness.