Ralph Johns Johns, a downtown Greensboro merchant in 1960 was popular with the black community -- particularly the students at A&T and Bennett colleges to whom he gave support, advice, and occasional loans. He was one of the few white members of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and as early as 1949 had tried to entice one of the students to challenge segregation. Johns was born of Syrian immigrant parents in New Castle, Pa. In 1944 after discharge from the Army Air Force Johns and his wife, a Greensboro native settled in the Gate City and opened a clothing store on East Market Street. In the late 1960s, he became an organizer for the Guilford County Office of Economic Opportunity, but was fired after accusing the agency of not doing enough for the poor.