WPBF 25 senior producer Desiree Malkey and cameraman Joel Waldmann on the hunt for Cracker Johnson.

Today two journalists from the local ABC affiliate  WPBF 25 came by the house to film a segment on the CJH restoration project as part of their ongoing series “Palm Beach County: A Century of Change.” The journalists were incredibly thorough. By the end of the day, we put much more flesh around the legend of the man who built the 1926 house; We literally found Cracker Johnson. (WATCH THE VIDEO of the program that premiered Sunday Aug. 16 at 11 p.m.)

But let’s start from the beginning.  Monday morning, WPBF filmed the CJH architecture and unique features like the secret room where they say the wealthy entrepreneur James Jerome “Cracker” Johnson stashed booze during prohibition. Serena and Natalie  gave interviews about trying to restore the house back to its former glory.  They filmed Derrell Outler,  handyman extraordinaire, as he busted up the yucky ceramic tiles throughout the main floor of the house were recently discovered to cover gorgeous oak floors (!)

James Jimenez Johnson, the grandson of Cracker Johnson (who looked just like him) also came by the house to share stories he heard about his grandfather growing up. He told the crew that his grandfather did a lot of things, “some legal, some illegal” but that at that time as a black man, “not everyone could go to Harvard, Yale or MIT.”  He said his grandfather never kept money in banks but in safes. So the day the white mob murdered his grandfather in 1946, it set off a gold rush in all of his vast holdings to find where he hid the piles of money.

Mr. Johnson said his grandfather was buried next to his wife Aurillia in a historic segregated black cemetery named Evergreen.  WPBF’s senior producer Desiree Malky wanted film his grave. So we called Tony Marconi at the Historical Society of Palm Beach County because we figured he would know where this cemetery was.  Sure enough, he gave directions to the privately-owned “colored cemetery” established in 1916. Black people were denied burial at Woodlawn, the city-run cemetery up until 1966. Today Evergreen is tucked behind what looked like an industrial park.

Cracker Johnson was buried here, somewhere....

Desiree, the cameraman Joel Waldmann and Natalie got out of the cars and stood there facing hundreds of graves, most of them cement, some marked, some markers faded away.  It was hot as the devil. Poor Joel’s shoulder had to be dying.  What were the chances that we’d find Cracker Johnson’s headstone among the rows upon rows of graves there?

Finally, Joel’s camera lens scanned, then focused in on a bright  marble headstone marked “JOHNSON.” “There it is, James J. Johnson,” he said. “You’re kidding…” Natalie said, not quite believing it. There it was. JAMES J. JOHNSON July 2, 1946 to the right of his wife AURILLIA L. JOHNSON Aug. 22, 1947.  True to form, Cracker Johnson’s tall peach colored marble headstone was clearly the flossiest out of the bunch.

It’s hard to explain the feeling of seeing the two headstones. Surreal to “find” Cracker Johnson, after all the years of hearing the lore around him and his house. There was the Johnson family plot amid rows and rows of black people segregated in death as they were in life.

WATCH THE WPBF VIDEO

WATCH A SLIDESHOW OF THE SEARCH FOR CRACKER JOHNSON

JAMES J. JOHNSON July 2, 1946 and AURILLA L. JOHNSON Aug. 22, 1947

Willie firing up his latest catch....

Some have remarked on the “sadly named” Division Avenue where the Cracker Johnson House is located in West Palm Beach, because it has made a certain kind of headline in the past. But on Friday nights on the 1400 block there’s only one Division to speak of: either you “family” or you ain’t. If you family, as fisherman and cook extraordinaire Willie so defines it, you are entitled to partake in his  Friday night ritual. Willie gathers up the week’s catch. “I do a looooot of fishing,” he explained. This Friday it was bluefish, barracuda, sand perch and of course catfish.

Natalie and Serena show the tour group this year's crop of mangos

Dr. Natalie Hopkinson (black cardigan) and Serena Hopkinson (white shirt), welcome a tour bus full of historic preservationist in Palm Beach for Florida’s annual statewide conference in 2009. A special thanks to Kimberly Fairall, Gwen Ferguson and Caroline Weiss at the Florida Preservation Trust for adding the house as a stop on the African American Heritage trail. We had an amazing time at the conference, met many supportive people committed to helping us with getting funding for our project. The final gala at Donald Trump’s Palm Beach country club Mar-A-Lago was fabulous as well.

Here are some shots of the preservationist group visit.

taking place in Palm Beach this year.

We are hoping attending the trust’s annual conference this weekend will allow us to network and find out more about resources are available to help us complete this project, as well as to develop programs to be able to open the house up to the local community for all to enjoy. We signed up too late to get tickets to the big gala at Donald Trump’s chi-chi Mar-a-Lago Club.  But we are on a waiting list. Serena and Natalie told the director of the Trust that we have already gone shopping for this black-tie event, so we simply MUST get in!