Umar Johnson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Umar Johnson
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Johnson in 2016
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Jermaine Shoemake
August 21, 1974 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
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| Education | Millersville University of Pennsylvania (BA) Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PsyD) |
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Umar Rashad Ibn Abdullah-Johnson (born Jermaine Shoemake; August 21, 1974), better known simply as Dr. Umar, is an American Black activist, psychologist, and motivational speaker.
Early life and education
Johnson is a native of North Philadelphia. His stepmother, Bernice Elizabeth Dockins Abdullah-Johnson, was a preschool teacher.
Johnson graduated from Millersville University before graduating in 2012 from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine with a Psy.D. in clinical psychology.
Career
Book and documentary appearance
In 2011, he was featured on The Untold History of People of Aboriginal, Moor, and African Descent, directed by Tariq Nasheed. In 2013, Johnson published Psycho-Academic Holocaust: The Special Education & ADHD Wars Against Black Boys, a book in which he contended that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was increasingly misdiagnosed in Black communities and that the American education system used ADHD to stigmatize black children.
School project
In June 2014, Johnson said he would raise US$5 million to buy the former campus of Saint Paul's College in Lawrenceville, Virginia, which had closed down in 2013 due to financial struggles, and rename it to Frederick Douglass Marcus Garvey Academy, which he said would be a boarding school for Black boys. He claimed to have sufficient funds to buy the Saint Paul's site in 2014, but did not do so leading to the property being bought by an Asian investor. In 2015, Johnson claimed that he would open the school the following year; he failed to do so.
In April 2017, Johnson founded the National Independent Black Parent Association in Leimert Park, Los Angeles.
In an Instagram post dated March 1, 2023, Johnson announced that he plans to open the school in time for the 2024–25 school year.
