Johnson Doe was born in Grand Gedeh County, Liberia in 1966. As a youth, Johnson was already beginning to be a community leader. He realized that the younger children in his community were not allowed to play soccer because all of the resources were allocated for the older children. As a result, he formed the Doe Johnson Sports Association and helped the children earn money for their uniforms and equipment by organizing work with local farms. He later attended high school in Monrovia.

Due to the onset of the Liberian Civil War, Johnson fled to Ivory Coast. Here he became certified as a teacher through a United Nations sponsored Teacher’s Workshop and taught elementary school to refugee children for 4 years. Afterwards, Johnson helped start his own school with a local pastor called the Good News Baptist Elementary School where he was the school administrator. The school was later expanded into a high school- graduating several hundred students.

Following this, Johnson left to study crop science and vegetable production. He was then employed as an agricultural extension agent responsible for 10 villages and enjoyed this work very much. Unfortunately due to the war in Ivory Coast, he had to flee to a refugee camp in Ghana. Here Johnson was business manager of a non-profit helping orphan children attend school and single mothers earn income through micro-credit loans called the African Children’s Welfare Committee. Johnson also served as the Youth President for the Liberian Refugee Youth Association in addition to teaching peace education and conflict resolution in the refugee camp.

In 2004 Johnson had the opportunity to be resettled to Austin, Texas where he lives now with his with Dorothy and his 4 children. Johnson is an active member of Triumphant Love Lutheran Church, social chairman of the Liberian Association of Austin and a founder of the African Society of Austin.